Despite the opposition, the motion picture industry flourished between 1910 and 1915. In an attempt to lure middle-class audiences, exhibitors had created "picture palaces," opulent movie theaters featuring plush seats, marble foyers, electric lights, and live orchestras. In 1910, Thomas Saxe's Princess Theater in Milwaukee opened a "new era in elegance," with its seating for nine hundred, a pipe organ, electric fountains in the lobby, and beveled-plate-glass-and-mahogany doors. The full-length feature film was the standard offering at these palaces. Often an hour or more in length, the new features boasted plots drawn from classical drama and literature. As a result of these developments, and combined with the aggressive marketing of the movie-star system and the rise of such popular film celebrities as Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin, the cinema emerged by 1915 as a truly national mass medium. That year, an estimated sixteen thousand movie theaters in America sold fifteen million admissions a week.15
Encouraged by the cinema's growth yet aware of the opposition, Louella adopted a narrative strategy in her column similar to that of fan magazines. To appease fans' yearnings for personal information about stars yet dignify the cinema before its opponents, Louella described film actors as virtuous upholders of middle-class values. Adopting Alan Dale's chatty style, she encouraged readers, her "dear friends," to gossip with her "over the back fence" and accompany her on visits to stars' homes, where they would see firsthand the stars in all their unscripted innocence.
In a typical column, Louella allegedly dropped in on an actress to share a meal, help her cook, or enjoy afternoon tea. In 1916, for example, Louella told her readers that she visited "Beverly Bayne at her apartment one evening. Miss Bayne went into the kitchen and cooked a dinner that would make every [restaurant] in the country try to lure her away from the studio.... [She was] enveloped in a dark blue kitchen apron with cheeks flushed and engaged in hard work." Later, Louella described in detail an interview she conducted over breakfast with an actress in the star's home-their conversation was intimate "after the fashion of women who are left alone to talk for a solid hour." The actress Vivian Martin, a "pretty child," "has sent me more recipes than any other film player," Louella wrote. Rivaling Myrtle Stedman's talent as a screen star was her "skill in making butterscotch pie."16 These descriptions, of course, were fabricated, and the interviews, which were scheduled well in advance, usually took place in restaurants and hotel lobbies. Louella and Beverly Bayne were friends, and she often went to Bayne's apartment at night to drink and play cards.
Clearly, Louella's overwrought descriptions of the stars as pure and domestic were meant to defuse long-standing associations of actresses with loose sexuality. These homey chats also had another purpose-to dignify Louella. To win her readers' confidence and disarm the cinema critics, Louella portrayed herself as an amiable yet respectable middle-class mother with good sense and impeccable virtue.
To assure her readers that she was trustworthy ("just folks," as she described it) she played up her rural roots and referred frequently to her friends back in Dixon. This was a shrewd strategy in a nation that was still largely rural and that associated rural imagery with honesty and tradition. She also mentioned Harriet frequently, hoping that her maternal status would cement her propriety. Just as women's reform groups had claimed a maternal right to protect their children through film censorship, Louella argued that good mothers-herself included-used the movies as an educational tool and regulated their children's film consumption with "proper supervision." 17 "Don't let your children see any picture which comes to your theatres first. I have a little daughter, Harriet, ... [and] I do not allow her to see any film which I have not first censored. The child's little mind is like a beautiful rose bud; if you force it open with unnatural things you will have a warped rose," she wrote in 1916.11
To curry favor with the reformers, she even went as far as to ally herself with a movement for educational films being spearheaded by several reform groups. When a local charity group, the Fair Hope League, instituted aTues- day night program of instructional films for the city's underprivileged youth, she announced, "Here are the directors of a well-known charitable institution deciding that motion pictures are the best medium of presenting entertaining lessons for children. We, who have appreciated the importance of pictures as an educational factor, are delighted that other persons are beginning to give the movies credit for the good they can do. "19 This maternal relationship extended to her interviewees and her readers. She described herself as a "mother confessor" to the stars and urged readers, "Write to me and tell me your troubles. I love to hear other people's troubles."20
Despite the preachy tone, the column was a hit. Thanks to her time at Essanay, she had access to some of the most popular stars of the day, including Francis Bushman, Charlie Chaplin, and Mary Pickford. Having been a fan herself, she knew that fans wanted to believe that actors were as amiable and charismatic in real life as they appeared in films. With rosy, glowing details, Louella bolstered their illusions.
By mid-1915, "Seen on the Screen" had earned Louella a reputation among film fans as the city's premiere movie expert. Fans wrote to her for information about their favorite actors; some, lured by Louella's attractive photo, sent her weekly mash notes. "So you saw me on the street and think I am `heaps' better looking than my picture. Well, that helps some," she responded to one fan. "Why didn't you get up your nerve and come speak to me? Next time don't be afraid. I won't hurt you. Honest."2' Though she may not have warded off the threat of film censorship or changed the reformers' opinions about the movies, she seemed to have impressed several local conservative women's clubs. Intrigued by Louella's descriptions of the cinema's potential for social and educational benefit, they invited her to speak on the movies at several teas and luncheons.22
During her first year at the Herald, she scored several important interviews. One of the first was with Mary Pickford, the nation's most popular actress, in the summer of 1915. Like most cross-country travelers, Pickford changed trains in Chicago. She had arranged to briefly visit with Photoplay magazine editor James Quirk during the layover. Quirk, accompanied by Louella, went to the station to meet Pickford. The two were terrified by what they saw. Screaming, waving fans reached and clawed at the actress, a tiny woman practically invisible amid the crowd. Quirk and Louella rescued Pickford by routing her through the underground part of the northwestern station to Canal Street, where Quirk had a taxicab waiting.23 That afternoon, a grateful Pickford consented to an interview with Louella, and the two women began a relationship that would continue throughout their careers.
That summer Louella also interviewed Theda Bara, the vamp made famous by her portrayal of a conniving seductress in the 1915 film A Fool There Was. Born Theodosia Goodman in Columbus, Ohio, Bara had been transformed by imaginative press agents into one of the sexiest and most sensational portrayers of wicked women on the screen. Press releases reported that Bara, whose name was allegedly an anagram for "Arab Death," was a temperamental Arabian princess with an insatiable sex drive; lust and heat, they said, ran in her blood. It did not take a genius to realize that all this was ballyhoo, and even the most naive film fans had a sense that the scandalous Miss B was not all that she claimed. In 1915, press agents sensing that the public was growing wise to the ruse decided to reveal the truth before fans grew tired of the charade. After inviting several Chicago reporters to a press conference in a stifling hot room-Bara wore a fur coat and kept the windows shut, because, as an "Arabian princess," she needed heat-the publicists instructed the actress to throw off the coat, stagger to the window, and shout, "Give me air!" The group of reporters, which included Louella, ran back to their respective offices to print the news. "Her hair is like the serpent locks of Medusa, her eyes have the cruel cunning of Lucretia Borgia ... and her hands are those of the blood-bathing Elizabeth Bathory, who slaughtered young girls that she might bathe in their life blood and so retain her beauty. Can it be that fate has reincarnated in Theda Bara the souls of these monster
s of medieval times?" Louella asked her readers. "Scientists have ques tioned this most extraordinary of women to secure fresh evidence to support their half-proved laws of transmigration of souls, but the result has only been to prove that, though Miss Bara is the greatest delineator of evil types on the stage or screen today, she is in real life a sweet wholesome woman who detests the abnormal. "24
By July 1915, when she launched a series of Sunday columns titled "How to Become a Movie Actress," Louella was being advertised as not only the motion picture editor of the Herald but also "a photoplaywright,... scenario editor. . . and executive since the movies were first in their infancy." Lest her readers feel intimidated by the lofty credentials, she assured them that she was no elite, highbrow critic but was every bit as passionate about the movies as the most ardent fan. She portrayed herself as one of motion pictures' most vocal public defenders, ready to roll up her sleeves and defend the movies at the drop of a hat. She made good on her word in a well-publicized feud with the Herald's drama critic, Richard Henry Little. Little detested the movies, and he never hesitated to share his feelings with his readers. In an article in November 1915, he declared that movies were little more than a "passing fad": "They have certain elements that make them popular for a moment, but art alone endures, and there is no more art in the movies than there is in a bronze guinea pig." When Louella read the article, she flew into a rage. In the next day's column, she asked her readers, "Of what use is Mr. Little's scornful attitude? The movies are here to stay. Let the legitimate and its followers do their worst. Every blow directed at the motion picture is a sign of weakness on the part of the fast fading legitimate stage." She gave Little the silent treatment for over a week. Though the two made amends, she never forgave him for criticizing what she described as the world's "most wonderful art. "21 But no controversy incurred her wrath more than the "battle" over The Birth of a Nation.
The saga began in May 1915, when filmmaker D. W. Griffith released his three-hour epic. With a production budget of two hundred thousand dollars and a cast of thousands, it was the most elaborate and costly film ever produced. It was also violently and virulently racist. Described in advertisements as a "historical romance of the Ku Klux Klan," the film glorified the Klan's reign of terror in the South in the aftermath of the Civil War and was wildly popular among Southern audiences. President Woodrow Wilson, a former history professor who was one of the scholars Griffith consulted for the film, described The Birth of a Nation as "history written with lightning." One of the highest-grossing films in American history, it generated as much criticism as praise. Following protests led by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the film was banned in several cities.
But not in Chicago, where the city's police board granted Griffith a permit to exhibit the film. No sooner had the license been issued than Chicago Mayor William Thompson, claiming that the permit was a mistake, banned the film on the grounds that its racist theme would incite riots, as it had in several other cities. Shortly after the injunction, Joseph McCarthy, a local booking agent for Griffith's films, filed suit against the city and began building a case against Mayor Thompson. Seeking support, McCarthy contacted one of the city's film "experts," a reporter from the Herald named Louella Parsons. In a secret showing of the film arranged by McCarthy, Louella and her brother, Eddie, who now lived in Chicago, viewed the three-hour film. They left awestruck. It was, Louella recalled, the "finest motion picture" they had ever seen.26 A writer for the Herald, one of Louella's colleagues, thought otherwise. Supporting Thompson's decision, he deemed the film "full of morbid emotions" and urged the city to "let it stay barred."27
Amazed that Griffith's "screen symphony," as she dubbed it, could receive such criticism, Louella sprang into action. Approaching Keeley in his office, she demanded a retraction of the article-or at the very least, that she be allowed to print a positive review of the film. Keeley insisted that he see the film first, and upon Louella's request, exhibitor McCarthy arranged a special screening for the Herald editor. Impressed by what he saw, Keeley gave Louella "carte blanche to write anything I saw fit." She then started her own newspaper campaign on behalf of the film, which she described as a "colossal production" and Griffith as "the master producer of motion pictures." "It was Griffith who first lifted pictures from the mediocre and gave them the real creative power they now possess," she gushed. "He is the pioneer Belasco of pictures, and for this success, born of both hard work and talent, he deserves the highest praise."28 In late May, when Griffith was in Chicago for the hearing, Louella interviewed him: "I want to say that it was the moment I have lived for, to personally meet this screen poet and hear from his own lips the miracle tale of his film symphonies."29
The court decided in favor of The Birth ofa Nation, declaring not only that the permit had been gained lawfully but also that there was no proof the film would "engender race animosity against the Negro citizens of our commu- nity."30The film ran for weeks in Chicago, reaping enormous profits; Lillian Gish, the film's star, became a celebrity, and Louella and Griffith, who was in Chicago during the hearings, became friends. Never once questioning the racist content of the film, for the rest of her life Louella remained proud of her involvement in the case, referring to it as a victory for the movies and free speech.
That fall Louella triumphed again-this time in the publishing field. In late August 1915, How to Write for the Movies, a two-hundred-page volume based on her screenwriting series for the Herald, was released by the A. C. McClurg publishing house and within weeks became a local best-seller. Offering detailed advice on virtually every aspect of script construction, the book was adopted by the University of Chicago as a textbook and would go down in film history as an early classic in the screenwriting field. (One Hollywood screenwriter, Dorothy Farnum, attributed her own success to Louella's book, and, more than ten years later, it was still described by one writing manual as having a "mint of good advice.")" The book featured sections on plot construction, synopsis writing, and avoiding plagiarism, peppered with inspirational cliches. "Write something that tells the simple truth, and yet at the same time stimulates the finer ideals and higher instincts of humanity. Make people see life as it is, without preaching. Touch their emotions, but leave them cleared like the keen air after a refreshing rain," Louella advised .12
The success of How to Write for the Movies won her an offer to lecture at the annual Chautauqua in Dixon. On the evening of August 7, 1916, at 7:30, an audience of thousands watched as Louella introduced her talk, "Proper Films for Little Folks and Famous Film People I Have Met." "I am not a speaker," she announced shyly. "I am only a scribbler and you must not expect any William Jennings Bryan nights of oratory."33 As the crowd laughed at Louella's reference-Bryan's speech at the Dixon Chautauqua had been one of the most memorable events in local history-Louella cleared her throat and pointed to a large movie screen.34 There, the audience saw a short film, compliments of Louella's Essanay friends, that depicted the actors' "home life and characteristic attitudes"-in other words, shots of stars goofing around at home and at the studio.35 When Louella told them that she knew the actors personally, the crowd was spellbound. Louella later recalled that during the talk she was "scared to death," because "the whole town was turning out for my appearance and I was trying my best to be very dignified and act very important." After Louella was interviewed by two local papers, Harriet followed the reporters outside. "Take a tip from me and don't go to hear mother," she told them. "She's terrible-I heard her rehearse."36
Though Louella spoke that summer in several midwestern towns and cities, including Kansas City, she maintained that her Dixon lecture was one of her greatest accomplishments as a public speaker. "Chautauqua audiences are the most critical, and I held their undivided attention for one hour and a quarter. There was no getting up and leaving, no loud whispering or laughing, and one old man who has attended every meeting told me that my lecture was the most interesting this year," she reported to the Redpath Bur
eau, the booking agent for the midwestern Chautauqua circuit.37 Billed by the Dixon Evening Telegraph as one of the "most prominent" movie writers in America, she returned to Chicago that September exhausted but proud.38
The return of the big star went unnoticed. Though Louella had earned a reputation among Chicago film fans, in the Herald building she was little more than a girl reporter. Like most newspapers of the period, the Herald was virtually an all-male enterprise. Bill Forman, the sports editor, cracked lewd jokes, Jim Keeley barked out orders like a drill sergeant, and reporter Jack Lair, whom Louella called the paper's "star scribbler," chain-smoked while working late into the night.39 The gaunt, unkempt Richard Henry Little penned his lofty criticism in the drama department on the fourth floor, and Felix Borowski, his counterpart in music, wrote similarly purple prose. Unlike drama criticism, considered to be serious and intellectual, movie writing was deemed frivolous and thus appropriate for women. A journalism handbook of the period, echoing the attitudes of most male editors, claimed that "women, because ... [of] their quick and responsive imagination [and] their intense preoccupation with children, make good moving picture crit- ics."40 Chicago's two female movie columnists, Louella and her friend Frances Peck, who wrote the "Mae Tinee" movie column for the Chicago Tribune, received little praise from their male peers, who refused to take their work seriously. Ben Hecht, a reporter for the Chicago Daily journal who later became a well-known Hollywood screenwriter, recalled that Louella had a poor reputation among the city's journalists and at one point called her "the worst reporter the town ever knew."41
The First Lady of Hollywood Page 7