Topic: Judith Regan

Judith Regan (born 17 August 1953 in Massachusetts) is an American editor and book publisher, who became famous for pioneering the publishing of celebrity autobiographies.

Regan grew up on Long Island, and graduated from Bay Shore High School in 1971. She then attended Vassar College, receiving her A.B. degree in 1975. Then in 1978, while working as a secretary at Harvard University, Regan answered a newspaper ad for a reporter for The National Enquirer and got the job. In the early 1980s, Regan relocated to New York City, where she continues to live. She is divorced and has two children, Lara and Patrick.

In 1987, Regan approached Simon & Schuster with an idea for a book, a study of the average American family, with Ozzie and Harriet as its centerpiece. The editor at Pocket Books did not want the book. The President of Pocket Books hired Regan to work for the company as a consultant, Editor at Large. She soon had a string of successes: Drew Barrymore's Little Girl Lost, Kathie Lee Gifford's I Can't Believe I Said That!, and celebrity autobiographies such as those of Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern. In doing so she contraindicated the conventional wisdom of the somewhat staid New York publishing industry that there was a readership and marketplace for such works.