case of Mr. O   Idiom, e.g, Agents, publicists, producers and studio executives dreaded the words: “Your star has a case of Mr. O.” 

Definition: To be implicated in a scandal, usually sexual in nature.

History: Post-war Hollywood’s most notorious private eye wasn’t fictional, but a 4-pack-a-day scotch-swilling gumshoe named Fred Otash. No one dug lower to stay on top as “Mr. O,” who along with his operatives shoveled the dirt that made Confidential Magazine America’s number one scandal sheet in the 1950s and 1960s. Having a case of Mr. O was never good news.

Mr. O’s biggest case, however, never reached the presses. It involved Otash being hired by Mafia boss Sam Giacana to bug Peter Lawford’s Malibu beach house, Marilyn Monroe’s Brentwood home and other L.A. lovemaking nests of Jack and Bobby Kennedy. That case was closed suddenly and soundly by the FBI.