But few know that Hollywood's greatest pre-Rahm Washington liaison was once pinkballed by J. Edgar Hoover's FBI. In 1964, Valenti was the Don Draper of the Houston advertising world, whereupon he won an appointment as a top aide to President Lyndon B. Johnson. There were whispers, though, that he had been engaged in suspiciously non-hetero activities; to wit, pulling a Franco in the White House pool. The Washington Post reports:

[I]n October 1964, a man whose name has been redacted from the records called an FBI official in New York. The caller encouraged the FBI to investigate Valenti "as a sex pervert," files show. "He based this request on the fact that he had read in the newspapers that Valenti swims in the nude in the White House pool."

A month later, the bureau found out that the Republican Party had hired a retired FBI agent to look into rumors that Valenti was attracted to men. The agents then focused on Valenti's relationship with the photographer, whose connections with Valenti had enabled him to photograph Johnson two years earlier, the memo said.

Six days later, Hoover reported the allegations to the president. Johnson spoke to Hoover lieutenant Cartha D. DeLoach and asserted that "Valenti was all right; however, his judgment was faulty inasmuch as he felt Jenkins had been all right," files show. DeLoach advised Johnson to have Valenti submit a sworn affidavit regarding his association with "this homosexual." Johnson demurred, saying Valenti had no need to defend himself.

"The President indicated that if I were to ask him if 'Lady Bird' were virtuous he would feel it would be unnecessary to reply, inasmuch as he knew 'Lady Bird' was virtuous," DeLoach wrote in a note."

Valenti was already one of Johnson's most trusted confidantes, standing just feet away as he took the oath of office aboard Air Force One after John F. Kennedy's assassination. LBJ may have used a Lady Bird trust analogy to protect his friend, but we suspect he really didn't care much one way or another. In those tumultuous days there was far more important business to attend to, and what a guy did naked in the White House pool with his longtime photographer companion was really nobody's business but his own.

• Valenti's Sexuality Was Topic For FBI [WashPo]

A newly-released cache of FBI documents reveals the bureau investigated Valenti following a bizarre 1964 tip from a caller who "read in the newspapers that Valenti swims in the nude in the White House pool." The investigation found Valenti was friends with a gay photographer in Houston, leading to rumors he himself was gay. The bureau found no proof of this, and Valenti had a reputation as a ladies man, so case closed.

It's harder to draw conclusions about the host of Bill Moyers Journal. The same FBI documents show Moyers, as a special assistant to President Lyndon Baines Johnson, requested the bureau "investigate two other administration figures who were 'suspected as having homosexual tendencies.'" An FBI official later discussed that request with Johnson, which seems odd given that Moyers told the Post the FBI might have sparked the investigation:

Moyers said by e-mail yesterday that his memory is unclear after so many years but that he may have been simply looking for details of allegations first brought to the president by Hoover.

Moyers is 74. People will probably forgive him trying to protect a pro-civil-rights president against then-lethal associations with gays. It will be harder for them to understand how he can keep working as a journalist if he can't even remember such behavior.

Popular Internet sites may be the flashy new kids on the entertainment block, but moviehouses rank among the original social networks. As a kid in Kansas, the local cinema was a center of the community. Still today, when we ask teens how they prefer to see movies, over and over they tell us in the theater with friends (apparently, we parents are too embarrassing to be seen with in public). It makes sense to a generation that perpetually seeks out community — whether it be online gaming, video-sharing or social networking.

It's easy to get nostalgic about the movies. But it's important to appreciate and celebrate the renaissance they are enjoying in the here and now. In a world where a recent study claims that 62% of the country prefers spending time with their computer than with their spouse, it's worth noting that we still seek out the communal experience of going to the movies.In the dark of the moviehouse, there's a rare camaraderie in modern society. We laugh together. In more poignant moments, we collectively pretend there's something stuck in our eyes. It's comforting to know that in our famously wired world, we still like to occasionally unplug and connect instead with one another.

It's at a moment like this that we really miss the late Jack Valenti's leadership of the MPAA. While we appreciate Glickman's blog-enabled "Up with movies!" positivity, it's no substitute for a hyper-articulate screed faxed to the trade papers blaming international copyright pirates for Spider-Man 3's failure to post a billion-dollar opening weekend, announcing his intention to "bathe in the blood of every last Beijing black market stallminder trying to steal three square meals from the mouths of honest Hollywood working folk," and recognizing that the seeming health of the industry is merely "an illusion conjured by the tireless, scheming enemies of the business of show."

• A Long, Hot Summer at the Movies [HuffPo]

· S Day is finally here, and Tim and Eric couldn't be more excited about it. Really.
· Posthumous note to Jack Valenti: If you're playing Truth or Dare with the 1991 Madonna, you always take dare. Always.
· Ah, we knew there something wrong with the way Britney Spears dresses, and now we can put our finger on exactly what it is. [via goldenfiddle]
· Worn down by months of unironic posts about Matthew McConaughey's abs, Reese Witherspoon feeding parking meters, and Hyde's guest list, a writer at TMZ finally loses her shit.
·Hey, unicorns! Flying ones!

· Jack Valenti, Champion Of The Ratings System

· Jack Valenti Shares His Thoughts On Politics, Elves

· MPAA Chief Jack Valenti: Really, We Love This Inter-Thing

· Nerd Stumps Jack Valenti

· Jack Valenti: Cigarettes Are Stealing Our Movies!

· Jack Valenti Won't Go Quietly

[Photo: Getty Images]

• Jack Valenti, 85; former Hollywood lobbyist pioneered film ratings system [LAT]

Immediately, two movies challenged the code. One was "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" — starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor and directed by Mike Nichols. It was a serious film, but it included language never heard before in a Hollywood movie (although by today's standards, it was so mild it could be screened at a nunnery). I quickly flew to Hollywood to meet with an actual living Warner brother — Jack Warner — who ran the studio with an iron fist. We talked for several hours. We finally agreed to take out one "screw," but after protracted negotiation, we left in the phrase "hump the hostess."

When I left the studio, I thought, "How silly can it get? Two grown men discussing such things!"

To our old friend Jack, we offer a heartfelt Huzzah! We can hardly imagine such a crazy-making discussion in this enlightened age! Under the current, near-perfect system, it's nigh unthinkable that two distinguished gentleman might spend days deciding how many seconds one marionette can urinate on another or how many times we can see Kevin Bacon thrust his manhood into a quivering three-way pile of flesh without earning an NC-17 rating. "Hump the hostess," how positively daft!

UPDATE: A reader thought that this "hump the hostess" anecdote sounded suspiciously familiar. Cut the old guy some slack! At his age, he probably can't form any new memories.

• Rated PG (pretty good) [LAT]