Despite the affable front that Louella presented in her column and to acquaintances, she earned the reputation among her coworkers of being offputting. She was often impatient and testy, especially when she was working, and sensitive to criticism. One of Louella's assistants on the Telegraph, Dorothy Day, chose her words wisely when she later remarked to a Hollywood trade journal that even when Louella meant to tease she used a "pitchfork of humor."3 Because Louella worked as a gossip columnist, her work and social life merged. Many of those who met her socially wondered whether her friendly banter was authentic, or whether they were merely being sized up for her column. Recalled Frances Marion, who met Louella in 1922, "When you greeted her, she smiled at you in an abstract manner as if mentally she were writing your obituary."4
In 1921, Louella met actress Bebe Daniels, who became one of her closest friends. The rare companion with whom Louella claimed she "never had the slightest hint of misunderstanding or even a temporary peeve," Daniels was twenty years younger than she.5 Born to stage actor parents in Dallas, Daniels first appeared in the Selig company's 19o8 film A Common Enemy. In 1915, she signed on with the Hal Roach comedy studio in Hollywood, where she made over two hundred films. In 1919, she moved to the Paramount Studio, where she became famous for her comic roles. She was also notorious for her free spirit. In 1921, she was arrested for speeding in Hollywood and sentenced to ten days in jail. Determined to enjoy her time behind bars, she had meals brought in from expensive restaurants, invited friends to visit her, and even brought in a Persian rug. 6
Another of Louella's friends was a young actress named Hedda Hopper. A butcher's daughter from small-town Pennsylvania with theatrical aspirations, Hopper, born Elda Furry, ran away to New York as a teen and landed a spot in the chorus of the Pied Piper, featuring the musical comedy star DeWolf Hopper. Hopper, six foot four, twenty-seven years Furry's senior, and completely bald, had just divorced his fourth wife, and in 1913 Furry and Hopper married. The couple moved to Hollywood, where DeWolf pursued work in film. Elda scored a few film roles, including a starring part in William Far- num's 1915 film, The Battle ofHearts, and when she and DeWolf returned to New York the following year, she took bit parts at the studios in the New York area, as well as a major supporting role in the 1917 film Virtuous Wives. It was not long after Virtuous Wives that she decided to change her name. DeWolf's four previous wives were named Ella, Ida, Edna, and Nella, and because he couldn't always remember that she was Elda, she adopted the name Hedda on the advice of a numerologist.? By 192o Hedda Hopper was making a name for herself in films, having won supporting roles in productions for the Triangle, Metro, and Goldwyn film studios. According to Frances Marion, in New York Hopper and Louella were "very good friends. "I
But it was another actress, Marion Davies, who became Louella's closest friend in New York. Witty, generous, and well connected, Davies, sixteen years Louella's junior, would broaden Louella's horizons, provide her with much-needed companionship, and boost her career. Davies dragged Louella to "cat parties"-boisterous gatherings of actresses and women writers de scribed by screenwriter Anita Loos as "exceedingly gay," gossipy, and "mildly flavored with gin"-and to exclusive New York social events that even Louella's Telegraph pass would not allow her to enter.9 In turn, Louella listened to Davies's troubles, flattered her in her column, and threw luncheons and soirees (described by one newspaper as "jolly little parties at the Algonquin by Louella O. Parsons") in Davies's honor.10
Yet even their friendship at times seemed tainted. No matter how close they became, there was always a shadow hanging over their relationship, one that sometimes cast doubt on the real motivation for their alliance. The shadow, not surprisingly, was as imposing as the figure who cast it-the publisher William Randolph Hearst, who would play a major role in both women's lives for nearly three decades.
There were two important lessons that Louella learned in New York. The first became evident within a few weeks: her job at the Telegraph would be far more demanding, both physically and mentally, than the work she did at the Herald. Louella often got only four or five hours of sleep and, even when she felt tired or weak, "continued to burn the candle at both ends." "It was a vicious circle," she recalled. "Up all night getting `color' for my column at night clubs and parties. At the office bright and early in the morning ... when I would feel my resistance ebbing." Though Louella's colleagues at the Telegraph noticed her exhaustion, they did little to curb her workaholism, since her efforts brought advertisers and readers to the paper."
Then there were the money problems. Despite her steady and well-paid job, Louella was almost broke. Harriet had started at the elite, private Horace Mann School, which required substantial monthly payments; and as Helen's diabetes worsened, her medical expenses increased. To make matters worse, Louella had a passion for clothes, manicures, parties, and fine handbags that further depleted her pocketbook. Though at the start of her Morning Telegraph career Louella had marveled at her hundred-dollar weekly salary (which by 1922 had increased to $iio), she soon found it insufficient and grumbled about her financial struggles. "I have found an honest taxi driver. He should be filmed for future reference," she reported to her readers, having complained for weeks about unscrupulous drivers who fleeced her with inflated fares. By 192o Louella had become good friends with the local pawnbroker and was borrowing regularly from both her Telegraph colleagues and the actors and directors she met through her column.'2
In the fall of 1922, when Helen entered a sanitarium, Louella and Harriet moved from the apartment on 116th Street to a suite at the Algonquin Hotel. At the end of December, Helen died. Her remains were taken to Freeport, and she was buried next to Joshua Oettinger in the city cemetery.13
Helen's passing marked the end of an era for Louella. Forty-one, with two marriages behind her and a sixteen-year-old daughter, Louella began seriously contemplating her financial future and career. By 1922, she was growing tired of the Telegraph. As a relatively well known New York film columnist, she reasoned, she could easily find a better-paying position at a more established paper. Always somewhat disreputable, the Telegraph, Louella recalled, had begun "to go down grade. "14 In the face of growing competition from mass-market magazines and tabloid newspapers, the Telegraph was losing readers. Working in a car barn was bad enough; losing her job would be unthinkable. In late 1922, in an attempt to find new work, Louella embarked on a scheme that would change her life. It began with a call to Marion Davies.
Louella first met Davies in 1919, several months after the release of Davies's first major film, Cecilia of the Pink Roses. Less impressed by Davies's performance than by the tremendous publicity campaign that surrounded the film-"The town is plastered with Lithos and other flamboyant advertising material of Marion Davies ... which must have cost a fortune," reported the magazine Town Topics in the summer of 1918-Louella arranged an interview with Davies through the actress's press agent, Rose Shulsinger. "I expected to see a gorgeous creature in a sable coat," Louella told her readers in March 1919. "Instead I saw a slender little girl with big eyes and a rather wistful expression waiting to meet me. She had not one word about herself but began to ask me all about newspaper work and what I did and how I did it. She is like a child who had suddenly found herself in a golden palace surrounded with every luxury money can buy." 'I
The "golden palace," a reference that would have been understood by nearly everyone in New York press, film, and theatrical circles, was the whirlwind life of parties, jewels, vacations-and most recently, film stardom-that was being purchased for Davies by the fifty-four-year-old, married publishing mogul William Randolph Hearst. A bon vivant with a longtime fascination with showgirls (Hearst's wife of fifteen years, Millicent, had been a chorus line dancer), Hearst first met Davies in 1915, when she appeared in the Irving Berlin musical Stop! Look.!Listen! Charmed by Davies's lithe figure and carefree spirit, Hearst began courting her with flowers, jewelry, and poems. The six-foot-tall, two-hundred-pound publishing giant was acting like a y
outh with a schoolboy crush; normally somewhat quiet and composed, Hearst, according to his longtime friend Orrin Peck, was suddenly and "desperately in love." 16
Though smitten, Hearst was not blind. He knew that although Davies may have been affectionate toward him, she also "loved" several other men. An experienced gold digger, Davies had been encouraged by her upwardly mobile, middle-class Irish American family to take up the life of a showgirl, and at seventeen had made her first appearance on Broadway. Although Davies enjoyed her work on the stage, it was not her interest in theater or dancing that kept her performing. As Davies's domineering mother, "Mama Rose," had made clear, dancing was a way to meet wealthy older men. A prosperous liaison, preferably leading to marriage, was the ultimate goal. Davies seemed to be on the right track. By her nineteenth birthday, she had been in affairs with several wealthy financiers and socialites.
Initially, Davies saw Hearst as just another of her millionaire lovers. Though she accepted his jewels and rewarded him with flirtations, she planned to terminate their relationship whenever another suitor captured her attention. In 1917, however, much to Davies's surprise, her heart dictated a sudden change in plans. Unexpectedly, Davies had fallen in love with Hearst, and their relationship grew serious.
The deeper the relationship, the more costly Hearst's gifts. By early 1917, he had given her a chauffeured limousine, expense accounts at major department stores, private acting lessons, and large sums of cash, which he transferred directly into both Davies's and her parents' bank accounts.'?
The one gift that Hearst wanted to give Davies but could not was a wedding ring. Though he was willing to pursue divorce, Millicent Hearst, relishing the financial and social benefits that came with being Hearst's wife, would not consider legal separation. Davies seemed not to mind her status as Hearst's lover. "Why should I run after a streetcar," she asked, "when I was already aboard?" It was perhaps to compensate for his inability to marry Davies that Hearst gave her so many extravagant presents-including, in 1917, the first installment of what would become perhaps his greatest gift of all. During that year, Hearst decided to make Davies a motion picture star.'$
William Randolph Hearst was, by 1917, the nation's wealthiest and most powerful publisher. He also wielded considerable influence in the film industry. Hearst's involvement with movies started in 1898, when he hired cam eramen to shoot live newsreel footage of the Spanish-American War. By 1915, he was not only the biggest producer and distributor of newsreels in the country but also the creator of several feature films. In 1913 he conceived the story and directed the production of the Perils ofPauline, a popular twentypart fictional film series about the life of a daring adventuress, played by actress Pearl White. Four years later, along with the independent producer Ivan Abramson, Hearst established a feature film company called Graphic Film. One of Graphic's first productions, in 1918, was a saccharine melodrama titled Cecilia of the Pink Roses, starring Marion 19
Cecilia, most reviewers agreed, left much to be desired. The plot was trite, the direction amateurish, and the acting clumsy. If Hearst was going to make Davies a star, he would have to do better. The obvious solution was to hire more talented directors, select better scripts, and enroll Davies in acting lessons. But Hearst being Hearst, he found a quicker solution. It was much easier to tell the world, through his papers, that Marion Davies was a brilliant actress than to actually prove it with fine acting and well-crafted films. In 1918, Hearst commissioned hundreds of newspaper and magazine ads for Cecilia that proclaimed Davies the most talented actress on the screen. For the film's premiere, Hearst equipped the theater with electric fans that blew the scent of hundreds of fresh roses into the audience.
Hearst launched his most spectacular publicity campaign for Davies in the fall of 192,2. To promote the film When Knighthood Was in Flower, he embarked on what became, according to Variety, "the most expensive and extensive ad campaign that has ever been organized for anything theatrical." The extraordinary publicity campaign included over 65o billboards in New York, 300 subway advertising placards, special booths in department stores that sold Knighthood souvenir books, and a dazzling string of electric signs that all but colonized Times Square. At a film industry luncheon, humorist Will Rogers quipped that Davies's next film would be titled "When Electric Light Was in Power. "21
Shortly after the release of Cecilia, Louella and Davies had begun seeing each other socially, and Davies's name frequently appeared in Louella's column. By the time of Knighthood's release, they had been friends for over three years. Louella always praised Davies's acting and films, so it was hardly surprising when she began aggressively promoting the latter film. "'When Knighthood Was in Flower' has done one thing for motion pictures. It has converted many people who were heretofore inclined to look on motion pictures as a necessary evil," Louella wrote.'
Louella was not the only one who considered the film worthy of acclaim. The "greatest triumph" of the film, reported the New York Review, "is that of Marion Davies. She agreeably astonished her first night audience with a carefully-wrought and easily-expressed characterization. It looks as if Miss Davies will have to be reckoned with for herself alone hereafter."22 Knighthood, declared Variety, was a "fine big and splendid mark on the not-so-long roadway of filmdom to date."23 What made Louella's praise unusual, however, was how frequently-and for how long-she mentioned the film in her column. Knighthood was "brilliant," Louella wrote, "rich in educational and artistic value." It was on par with the finest works of DeMille or Griffith-"one of the best films ever made."24 To help publicize the film, Louella invited Davies to luncheons at the Woman Pays Club, the Newspaper Women's Club, and the Professional Women's League. Marion Davies, she exaggerated, "is conceded to be one of the world's biggest and most popular stars." She "is the girl whom the critics all admitted has arrived, and whom the Prince of Wales calls a great artist." During the winter of 1922-23, Louella praised both Marion and Knighthood so lavishly that even her colleagues at the Telegraph grew suspicious. By early 1923, it had become clear that Louella was trying to catch Hearst's attention, with the intention of winning a position on his staff.
In 1923, Hearst owned nine daily newspapers, eleven evening papers, and fifteen Sunday papers, including two of New York's best-read papers, the journal and the American. (Over three hundred thousand copies of the American were issued each day, and nearly one-fifth of New York read the Sunday American.) With a combined circulation of nearly seven million, the Hearst papers were read by one out of four American families. In addition to his newspaper holdings, nine magazines, including Cosmopolitan and Good Housekeeping, and his growing film company, Hearst also ran the International News Service and King Features, two national syndication services.25 Hearst employees were well paid-Hearst had hired screenwriter Frances Marion at a weekly salary of two thousand dollars and cartoonist Rube Goldberg for more than twice as much-and had an international audience of millions.26 A job on a Hearst paper would mean readers and exposure on an unprecedented scale.
Louella enlisted Davies's help in her ploy and begged her to tell Hearst of her interest in joining his staff. Davies promised that she would, but when several weeks went by without word from Davies or Hearst, Louella began to worry. Then, unexpectedly, in early 1923, she received a call.
It was the night of a gala dinner dance at the Hotel Astor sponsored by the Motion Picture Theater Owners' Chamber of Commerce. Louella was in her suite at the Algonquin, dressing, when the phone rang. Davies was on the line, and she wanted to know if she could join Louella at the ball that evening. Louella agreed. An hour later, when Davies arrived at the hotel, the front desk rang and Harriet answered the phone. She heard Davies's voice and a high-pitched male voice in the background. "Your friend is here," Harriet shouted at Louella, "and there's a young man with her." When Louella finally descended to the lobby, she found that the "young man" was Hearst.27
At the ball, Louella told Hearst of her dissatisfaction with the Telegraph and her interest in working o
n his papers. When Hearst smiled and said nothing, Louella assumed she had blown her big chance. She was astonished when, a week later, Hearst invited her to dinner at his home on Riverside Drive. Over dinner, Hearst told Louella that he was interested in hiring her to work on the American and that he had the agreement ready. Sitting on the table before Louella was a three-year contract at a salary of $15o a week. She picked up the pen, then stopped. A woman of her experience, she told Hearst, was worth at least $20o a week, possibly $250. Hearst laughed. It was $rso or nothing, he said, and pushed the contract across the table. "I'll think about it," Louella replied, and walked out of the room.28
The following day Louella called the lawyer Nathan Burkan, a friend of Peter Brady's, and asked him to draft a contract for $25o a week. When Louella gave the new contract to Hearst a few weeks later, he refused to sign it, insisting that the salary was too high.29
For most of the summer of 1923 Louella kept the contract, hoping that Hearst would give in. Meanwhile, her column featured perhaps the most glowing praise of Hearst that any non-Hearst paper in America had ever published. Little OldNew York, released by the Cosmopolitan studio in mid-1923, "has done a great deal to add to the glories of Marion Davies as well as to pin new laurels on William Randolph Hearst as film producer," Louella wrote. "Little Old New York ... is a true blood sister of When Knighthood Was in Flower." In her review of another Cosmopolitan production, Unseeing Eyes, set in the Canadian Rockies, Louella praised Hearst's use of on-location footage and complex aerial shots. "William Randolph Hearst is a wise enough showman not to attempt to foist any imitation on the public," she explained to her readers.30
The First Lady of Hollywood Page 11