If there is such a thing as a pioneer in the world of celebrity scandal, Eddie Fisher might have been it.

The pop singer may have recorded 32 hit songs, but what most people remember about him is the fact that he stood smack in the middle of one of the most high-profile cheating controversies of all time, one that made it clear how hungry the American public was to read about the sordid private lives of its glossiest stars.

Any publication or blog that covers the rich and glamorous -- and that includes this one -- owes a strange debt, in a way, to Mr. Fisher. For those of you Celebritologists whose knowledge of scandalous Hollywood affairs doesn't go much farther back than the Meg Ryan/Russell Crowe era, allow me to explain.

In the late '40s and '50s, Eddie Fisher rose to fame as a benign pop crooner -- the kind of guy who earnestly and sweetly sang tunes like "Oh My Papa" and prompted teen girls to call him dreamy.

In 1955, he married Debbie Reynolds, an actress with a radiating-sunshine smile and a resume that included roles in "Singin' in the Rain" and "The Affairs of Dobie Gillis." Together, the two seemed to seep fairy-tale bliss from their pores; this was the perfect, black-and-white-photo-ready marriage. They had two children together, one of whom would eventually grow up to become enslaved by Jabba the Hutt while wearing a metal bikini. All was right with the world.

Then it all fell apart. In 1958, movie producer Mike Todd -- one of Fisher's closest friends -- died in a plane crash. Fisher reportedly tried to console Todd's widow, who happened to be Elizabeth Taylor, a friend of both Fisher's and Reynolds's. The two eventually began an affair, and not long after, Fisher asked for a divorce from Reynolds, as recounted in a profile of Reynolds that earlier this year in London's Daily Mail:

Lonely at home, while Eddie was away on tour, she telephoned her best friend Elizabeth Taylor at her hotel for a chat.
To her great shock, Fisher answered.
"Suddenly, a lot of things clicked into place," she recalls. "I could hear her voice asking him who was calling - they were obviously in bed together. I yelled at him, 'Roll over, darling and let me speak to Elizabeth.'"
Fisher slammed the receiver down and rushed home for a face-to-face confrontation. "I'm sorry," he told her. "Elizabeth and I are in love and I want a divorce."
Debbie replied: "If you marry her, she will throw you out within 18 months."
Reynolds was right. Ten months after Fisher and Taylor married, in May 1959, Taylor left Fisher and immediately married Richard Burton. It was all so ugly and sad, and the celebrity magazines at the time couldn't get enough of it.
To put this in contemporary context, if the equivalent of this love triangle broke today, TMZ would have to hire a new reporter solely to track all developments on the Reynolds/Fisher/Taylor beat. (Which, of course, would involve writing stories with headlines like: "Debbie to Liz: Stay away from my man!")

But of course, there is no equivalent to this story. The Fisher/Reynolds breakup had a shock factor of the Sandra Bullock/Jesse James split, times 10. This all happened in the 1950s, after all, an era when nice people didn't get divorced and women were supposed to make meat loaf for dinner while wearing high heels and flouncy, June Cleaver-esque house dresses. There are women who grew up during this time who, to this day, remain forever loyal to Debbie Reynolds because they feel so passionately that she was publicly, horribly wronged. I know this for a fact. One of those women is my mother.

Fisher's career pretty much dribbled down the drain after the whole debacle. Of course, if the same thing happened in the present day, he undoubtedly would have bounced back after a few high-profile interviews and an impressive turn on "Dancing With the Stars." But Eddie Fisher was a product of another era, one in which American society hadn't yet mastered the art of managing scandal.

Publicists, the media and members of the public all know the image-rehab drill by now. But Fisher -- either fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your perspective -- happened to cheat at a time when the public couldn't quite handle it. I suppose one could say we've progressed since then. Yet progress, somehow ... well, that doesn't seem like quite the right word.