The First Lady of Hollywood

by Samantha Barbas

  Indeed, by the time Louella transferred to the American, movie stars had won greater fame and public adoration than perhaps any other celebrity figures in American history. In 1921, when Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford honeymooned, they were literally mobbed by thousands of fans who tore at their hair and clothes. Top stars such as Clara Bow and Rudolph Valentino earned thousands of fan letters each week, major corporations used actors' endorsements for their products, and virtually every well-known actor had a national fan club.10 Not surprisingly, in this movie-crazed climate, the fan magazines flourished, and by 192o the major fan publications-Photoplay, Motion Picture, Motion Picture Classic, Picture Play, Photoplay journal, and Shadowland-had a combined circulation of over a million. Additionally, most major metropolitan papers had film review columns, which were often written by women. In addition to Louella, in New York the journalist Harriet Underhill wrote for the Herald Tribune, along with Willela Waldorf for the Post, Regina Cannon for the Graphic, Rose Pelwick for the journal, and Mildred Spain for the Daily News. Grace Kingsley wrote for the Los Angeles Times, Florence Lawrence for the Los Angeles Examiner, and Virginia Dale for the Chicago Examiner. 11 Writing for the fan magazines were editors Adele Whitely Fletcher and Elsie Seeligman and writers Adela Rogers St. Johns, Ruth Waterbury, Hazel Simpson Naylor, and Gladys Hall.'2

  In part, the female domination of movie writing was a product of the still widely held, sexist assumption that women were better reviewers of the "emotional and frivolous" cinema than men. It also reflected the fact that the majority of film audiences and film fans were female. Having entered the workplace by the thousands during the 19zos-by the end of the decade, nearly one quarter of the workforce was female-women had more disposable income than in the past, and increasingly they consumed luxury products such as fashionable clothing, cosmetics, and commercial entertainment. A Photoplay article from 1924 suggested that the American film audience was 75 percent female; according to the film trade journal Moving Picture World, "It has become an established fact that women fans constitute the major percentage of patronage." 13 In the hope of attracting these women as readers, fan magazines and newspapers hired women writers and constructed their articles as "woman to woman" chats between the female reader, the female journalist, and a celebrity actress.

  Not only were women earning more in the 19zos, but they were experiencing greater sexual freedom. Both the working woman and the "flapper"the caricature used to describe the fashionable young women of the decade who drank, smoked, and experimented sexually-sparked cultural controversy, as critics worried about the effects on society, public morals, and the family. In comparison to other mainstream cultural discourses during the 19zos, as film historian Gaylyn Studlar has written, the fan magazines took a relatively progressive, though somewhat contradictory, stance on women's changing economic and sexual roles.14 They sometimes condemned working women and flappers, but they often encouraged them. Moving back and forth between old and new moralities, the fan magazines upheld traditional virtues of marriage and motherhood while at the same time hinting at the pleasures of liberation.

  Louella adopted a similarly cautious approach in her column. Typically, she described actresses as successful career women and championed their professional achievements. Yet at the same time, she reaffirmed the importance of marriage and conservative attitudes toward female sexuality. In an interview with Mary Pickford in 1925, for example, she wrote that Pickford was the "best businesswoman in the industry" but that the actress was "more proud of her household accomplishments than anything else." A woman of virtue, as Louella described her, Pickford was happily married to actor Douglas Fairbanks and disdained "modern girls" who cared "for nothing but cocktails, cigarettes and jazz."15 In a brilliant merger of progress and tradition, in a piece on producer and screenwriter Marion Fairfax, Louella wrote that Fairfax had found the secret to a happy marriage-a career. "Women in business make better wives because they have no time for imaginary ills and needless troubles," she explained. "So you see, girls, if you want to keep your husbands interested ... you must follow Miss Fairfax's advice and find an interest outside your domestic difficulties." 16 It was Louella's ability to speak to the interests of female fans, and to play to both the independent women and traditionalists in her readership, that earned her a wide base of devoted readers.

  Louella's own public image similarly combined tradition and progress. Though she still portrayed herself in her column as maternal and morally conservative, she was now, in tune with the changing cultural climate, also a savvy, independent working woman who participated actively in the social life of the stars. That virtue went hand in hand with a celebrity lifestyle may have seemed contradictory, but this was the point. In Louella's telling, the stars-who never drank illegally, who were unfailingly monogamous, and who were unwilling "to stay up late at night and risk not looking fresh in the morning"-were as upstanding and ethical as she. 17 This false image of propriety became Louella's trademark, and maintaining it, one of the most important projects of her career.

  By 1925, Louella had become a local celebrity in her own right. By the end of her first year at the American, she was receiving over eight hundred fan letters a week. When Louella was hospitalized in 192-4, she received dozens of letters from fans concerned about her health, and readers inundated her with requests for autographs, photos, and personal advice. Like Walter Winchell, who had written a popular Broadway gossip column in the tabloid the New York Graphic since 1924, Louella was famous by virtue of her association with the famous.18

  Hearst was thrilled by Louella's success. Not only was she boosting the American's circulation, but she had become a kind of informal press agent for Hearst and Davies. Nearly every column began with praise for Davies or Hearst's Cosmopolitan productions. "Cosmopolitan has never had any dealings with the censor board for the reason that it has never made any censorable pictures," she announced in September 1924. "William Randolph Hearst was complimented by [Will] Hays as the one producer who never depends on suggestive or salacious titles to win favor for his pictures."" The praise was so lavish and frequent that some readers found it comical. "I have nothing against Hearst papers," joked a reporter at one film trade journal, "but I wish he would issue an order to Louella Parsons that [she] could tell the truth without losing [her] job. I would like to see him do it before the next Marion Davies picture is released." "W. R. Hearst got his money's worth when he hired Louella 0. Parsons as the picture reviewer of the New York American," quipped Variety. In each column, she "[goes] hook, line and sinker for Hearst and the Cosmopolitan pictures which her boss turns out."20

  In 1925, Hearst signed another deal with MGM that gave the studio the authority not only to distribute but also to produce his Cosmopolitan films. With his fortunes now tied to MGM, he took an active concern in the studio's finances. That year, Mae Murray, one of MGM's stars who had just appeared in the movie the Merry Widow, signed a production deal with Germany's Ufa studio, despite the fact that she was still under contract to MGM. Murray's decision to bolt the studio was appalling to both Hearst and MGM head Louis B. Mayer, who would lose thousands by her defection. They hoped to convince the star to break her deal with Ufa, even though Murray, who had a European lover pressuring her to come to the Continent, was set on leaving MGM. Hearst, Mayer, and movie czar Will Hays devised a scheme to win the star back, a plan that involved Louella.

  Louella and Murray were longtime friends who had known each other since Louella's Chicago Herald days. So Murray thought nothing of it when she received an invitation from Louella to a dinner party at Hearst's mansion. When she arrived at the party, Hearst opened the door and escorted her to the dining room. Seated around the table were two dozen men dressed in business suits-bankers and lawyers-and Louella. There was an eerie silence for several minutes after Murray sat down; at last, when the meal was served, Hearst turned to Murray and said, "Louella tells me you're leaving for Europe." "Yes, I have a wonderful contract with Ufa," Murray replied, an
d she proceeded to describe her agreement with the German studio. Hearst listened, then shook his head. "We'd have to boycott those films over here," he said. "Did it ever occur to you that going over there is not very patriotic, Miss Murray?" Hays chimed in. "That you'd be working against your country's business interests, enhancing another country's rival industry?" Hearst told Murray that he, Mayer, and Hays would prevent Murray's German films from being released in America and that she would be destroying her career. As Murray sat awkwardly, trapped in an impossible situation, Louella was poised at the end of the table, notebook and pencil in hand, ready to take down Murray's decision for the next edition of the paper. With no way out, Murray agreed to back out of the German deal and went to Europe to cancel her agreement with Ufa.2'

  A hardworking employee with important connections and the ability to attract thousands of readers, Louella was becoming one of the Hearst empire's most valuable assets. Although she and Hearst had had a minor spat in 1924 when he rewrote one of her film reviews after his dispute with Cecil DeMille over the rights to a script-Hearst had turned Louella's glowing review of The Ten Commandments into an attack, and she became furious-the two of them built a close relationship of trust and mutual respect.22 Their relationship was so close that, in the summer of 1925, Hearst commissioned Louella to become his personal spy.

  It began that May when Davies, who had by then moved to Beverly Hills to work full-time in films, visited New York for the premiere of her film Zander the Great. When Davies announced that she would be returning to California at the end of the month, Hearst urged Louella to join her. Though Louella initially protested-she didn't need to make the trip, she explained, and she'd rather stay in New York with Peter Brady-Hearst informed her that this was no vacation but a mission. Hearst knew that Davies had been involved with several Hollywood actors, including Charlie Chaplin, and he wanted Louella to monitor Davies's liaisons. This meant, of course, that Louella would be spying on her friend. Either she would have to betray Davies or she would have to refuse her boss's demands. It didn't take long for her to decide which allegiance was more important. With only a moment's hesitation, Louella agreed to Hearst's plan.

  On May 15, a group of "more than too movie stars and friends and a representative group of twenty-five US World War veterans," beneficiaries of a large charitable donation from Davies, gathered at Grand Central Station to bid farewell to Davies and Louella.23 After a week on the Lake Shore Limited, Louella stepped off the train to find a brilliant "glitter of gold."24 Amazed that the sun could be so bright, she looked more closely and discovered that the light came from fifteen large golden keys-the "keys" to the Hollywood studios-which were presented to her by a crew of studio representatives. The studios spared no expense to welcome Louella, and she was rushed into a series of meetings, luncheons, parties, and tours. "Before I had even washed the grime off my face, I was taken for a drive through its streets," she recalled. "I felt as if I were in a dream."25 Directors, actors, and writers turned out to celebrate her arrival, and she was honored at several dinners and parties, including affairs hosted by director Mack Sennett, Gloria Swanson, novelist Elinor Glyn, and Rudolph Valentino.26 Louella was even invited to appear as an extra in the film The Lights of New York, in which she wore an elaborate period costume, a frilly dress from the 1870s. "There never was a dress with so many ruffles and bustles and flounces. It was yellow and white and black and would have made a bean pole look fat. You can imagine how I looked in my 130 pounds," she told her readers.27

  Davies hosted some of the liveliest social events in Hollywood that summer, with plenty of music, dancing, and bootleg alcohol. Charlie Chaplin recalled that Davies often hired a bus to carry groups of actors down to the beach, where they ate, caught grunion, and made love late into the night.21 As promised, Louella reported each of Davies's parties and romantic liaisons to Hearst, although the publisher seemed far more willing to accept her transgressions than Louella had predicted. One night in June 1925, when Hearst arrived in Hollywood to see the premiere of Chaplin's film The Gold Rush, Louella informed him, in front of Davies, that Davies "didn't deserve" a diamond bracelet he had given her that evening. "She's been a bad girl," Louella told him. "Don't pay any attention to Louella," Davies snapped back. "She hasn't got any brains." Hearst quietly registered Louella's remark, then patted Davies's hand and insisted that she accept the gift. "Anything that Marion does," he told Louella, "is all right with me."29 By the premiere, all tensions had been forgotten, as Davies and Louella showed off their lavish new outfits-Louella wore a white georgette gown embroidered with rhinestones and crystals and a "Spanish shawl," reported the Los Angeles Herald-and later attended a party at the home of Samuel Goldwyn that had been supplied by "all of the reliable bootleggers in town." 30

  Shortly afterward, Louella was dispatched by the American managing editor Gene Fowler to Santa Barbara to report on a devastating 6.3 earthquake that virtually leveled the city's commercial district. Her "splendid work and splendid story," Fowler wrote to her, was "commended by important Californians."" This was unusual for Fowler, whose comments about Louella were usually critical. In New York, Fowler had tried to edit Louella's column, but Louella had protested. When she confronted Fowler and asked him why he "butchered" her work, Fowler replied, "Because you are totally and incurably illiterate." Louella then complained to Hearst, who ordered Fowler to keep his hands off of the column. For the next two and a half decades, Louella would pride herself on the fact that her column was never edited.32

  Louella's "mission" that summer was not the last time she would spy on Davies for Hearst. Nor was it the last time that she would set foot in the land of "glittering gold." In less than six months, Louella would be back in the West, though the circumstances that led to her return were not what she would have predicted. Louella went back to New York in August, not knowing that in less than a year she would be on her way to California to die.

  Back at home, Louella showed no indication of slowing down. In 1925, New York was in the midst of its "nightclub era"-the wild, raucous Prohibition days of flappers, bootleg gin, and speakeasies-and Louella's position as a prominent Hearst columnist took her into the highest echelons of the city's fashionable cafe society. She attended the openings of several elite New York nightclubs, partied with members of "society, stage, and the literary fraternity" at the Club Moritz, and dined at the Ritz Hotel with Davies, Charlie Chaplin, and James Quirk. She drank at some of the city's most notorious speakeasies, danced the tango with Rudolph Valentino, and spent her evenings in the arms of the "love of her life," Peter Brady."

  During 1925, Louella's relationship with Brady was at its peak. Both were rising stars-Brady had recently been appointed president of the Federation Bank of New York-and they used their mutual involvement in the world of film, journalism, and New York politics to continue their alliance. Louella and Brady were invited to speak at a series of film industry conventions around the Northeast, and they used the out-of-town engagements for their romantic rendezvous. Louella was also invited to make radio appearances, and in her half-hour broadcasts on station WOR, she recalled stories from her years at Essanay and "chatted intimately about screen celebrities." Her early attempts on the radio were marred by stage fright ("The first time I talked over the radio I was so depressed by the microphone that I was unable to collect my thoughts," she remembered).34 By the end of the year, however, she had become a confident public speaker and was invited to make a "regular circuit" of the New York stations.35

  Louella was flying high and, according to many observers, was a little out of control. She was described as being curt and testy at the Algonquin Hotel, where she lived. She resented the literati who patronized the hotel-in particular, the members of the famed Algonquin Round Table, whom she dismissed in her column as "intellectual snobs."36 "It was harder to get a seat at the Algonquin Round Table than to be invited to dinner at Buckingham Palace," she wrote. "I ... used to see the freeze-out that was given the brave souls who occas
ionally tried to force their way to that table only to be snubbed."37 She had a tendency to be loud and overbearing, particularly when she was nursing a hangover and could have used a restraining hand. Harriet, now in college at Wellesley, kept an eye on her mother during holiday breaks. "Happy New Year to Louella O. Parsons," wrote Baird Leonard in the January 1925 issue of Life magazine, "because her daughter is her mother."38

  Louella's crash was inevitable and, if anything, came too late, several weeks or even months after her friends had predicted it. It happened on a cold winter day, gray with clouds and drizzling rain. That morning she had gone to work and in the afternoon had attended a luncheon; that night, she lay in the Fifth Avenue Hospital, wondering what she had done that "God in his anger should will me to die."39

  There had been warnings, but Louella had ignored them. For much of 1924 she had been plagued by chronic exhaustion and in May 1925, had ended up in the hospital after catching a cold that developed into tonsillitis. During that visit she may also have had a hysterectomy.40 Though Louella remained tired and weak for several months, her job and her social life kept her in perpetual motion.