On January 5, 1930, the Los Angeles Examiner announced, "Quietly and simply, Louella Parsons, motion picture editor at Universal Service, yesterday at dusk became the bride of Dr. Harry Watson Martin, distinguished Hollywood physician. In the presence of some three score intimate friends and relatives, the famous chronicler of Hollywood's joys and tragedies and the noted physician spoke the lines that joined them in wedlock."70 The wedding took place in the lobby of Louella's apartment at the Villa Carlotta; Louella wore an elegant beige chiffon gown with satin shoes and matching gloves, and Harriet, in matching satin attire, served as the maid of honor. Louella and Harry had been engaged only two weeks.7'
It was "the happiest day of my life," Louella claimed, "and the beginning of the happiest era of my life."72
ON OCTOBER 29, 192,9, the stock market crashed, sending the nation into financial crisis. Over the next three years, nine thousand banks closed their doors, Americans lost over two and a half billion dollars in deposits, and breadlines formed on street corners throughout the country. Nationwide, the unemployment rate shot up to 25 percent and as high as 70 or 8o percent in some cities.' Though the Great Depression would eventually wreak havoc on Hollywood, the film industry successfully weathered the first year of the crisis as the result of an attendance boom created by the talkies. Not until 1931 did the studios have to reckon with falling attendance.
Though the talkies were a financial boon to the industry, they also brought problems. In addition to requiring the costly and tedious process of reequipping theaters and production facilities, sound revived the battle over film regulation. As Broadway actors descended on the movie capital to seek their fortunes in film, they brought with them their scandalous reputations. Not only was Hollywood attracting "undesirable elements," critics claimed, but the dialogue in the talkies was violent and sexually explicit. By early 193o, a national film censorship bill, the Brookhart Bill, was being debated in Congress.'
Will Hays and the studio executives opposed federal censorship. Hearst, however, feared that "censorship cannot be abolished and the only thing we can do is to make it as little objectionable as possible," as he stated in a telegram to Hays in 192,9. Hearst supported "uniform censorship"-the creation of a federal censorship board that would pass censorship rules acceptable to all of the different states. As things stood in 1929, the six existing state censorship boards used different standards. The Ohio board might find one scene objectionable and the Pennsylvania board another, forcing the studios to issue multiple versions of the same film. Hearst believed that his plan would not only do away with the multiple-version confusion but also pro tect the industry from even greater troubles at the box office. "No censorship at all would result in the irresponsibles in the profession issuing a number of pictures which would outrage the public and bring about a revival of the censorship idea in a more aggravated form than it exists at present," he explained to Hays.'
But an effective program of federal censorship, Hearst admitted, might take years to implement. A more immediate solution, he believed, was to force the film industry to enact more stringent self-censorship. As the reformers had repeatedly (and correctly) pointed out, the 1927 code of "Don'ts and Be Carefuls" was not being enforced by the producers. In a letter to Louella, Hearst explained:
I think it is a moral duty to keep the morals of the public from being corrupted by the rotten sex pictures. Vulgarity invaded the stage and now there is apparently no limit to the vulgarity. Everybody knows that this has been a bad thing for the stage and yet the motion picture people have not taken the lesson to heart. Soon we will have a revolt against indecency on the screen. There will be an increase of censorship[,] and probably many states which do not now have censorship will have it, with all that this means in the way of difficulties for the producer. A little wisdom preached in the motion picture columns might avoid these complications'
Prodded by Hearst, Louella used her column throughout 1929 to pressure the producers to follow the industry's self-censorship code and to assure her readers that, contrary to rumors, Hollywood was not being overtaken by "fast-living Broadway types." "You might think with all the Broadway theatrical element coming to our town the nightlife might become New Yorkish. Not a chance in Hollywood," she wrote. "Popular conception visualizes Hollywood as a place of lace-lined limousines, jewel-inlaid bathtubs, and Bacchanalian banquets. These exotic ideas of what constitute the average film star's daily routine are so directly opposed to the truth that some inspired soul must have invented this fiction."5
Though the 1930 censorship bill failed, the attack on the movies continued. In response, Martin Quigley, publisher of the trade journal Exhibitors' Herald; Father Daniel A. Lord, a Jesuit priest at St. Louis University; and Hays's assistant Jason Joy drafted a more stringent code of self-censorship, the Production Code, in 193o. The code banned profanity; homosexuality, or "sex perversion"; miscegenation; and the glorification of crime and other morally "degrading" activities, including cockfighting, bullfighting, bear baiting, and adultery. In July 193o, Hays began a publicity campaign for the code and, in the Ladies'Home journal, assured audiences that the new regulations would enable Hollywood to deal responsibly with the new "moral problems" created by sound films. In reality, the code did very little. Though the producers agreed to the code, most of them continued to pepper the talkies with the violence and sexual innuendo that 193os audiences had come to expect in films. Catholic reform organizations continued their .6
Hearst's interest in the censorship issue was overshadowed by concerns over losses in his publishing empire. Between 1925 and 1928, the Hearst papers, particularly in the Midwest and the East, had lost readers, and throughout 1928 Hearst made personnel and layout changes in hopes of boosting circulation. Hearst was particularly concerned about the readership of his papers' movie sections and feared that film fans were being lured away by the fan magazines. By 1930, Screenland, Screen Play, Screenbook, Screen Stories, Screen Romances, Modern Screen, and Movies had joined Photoplay, Motion Picture Classic, Motion Picture, and Shadowland in the fan magazine market, and mainstream magazines-Liberty, True Story, Home Magazine, Collier's, and Redbook, among others-were also offering detailed coverage of Hollywood.
Believing that the movie pages in his papers were "sloppy and almost worthless," Hearst sent Louella on a nationwide tour to revamp his papers' motion picture coverage. Bearing a letter from Hearst, Louella traveled to Hearst's editorial offices in Pittsburgh, Detroit, Rochester, Boston, Milwaukee, Omaha, Seattle, and San Francisco. "Louella Parsons gets out a wonderful moving picture page and also a wonderful motion picture department," the letter read. "She did it on the New York American and she is doing it now on the Los Angeles Examiner. Her page is readable and well made up and clean and clear pictorially. She makes a careful selection of her features [,] and her picture pages and picture department really mean something not only to the people in the industry but to the general reader.... I want Miss Parsons to improve not only the appearance of the pages but the contents, and not only the contents but the methods," Hearst continued. "After that it will be up to the editor to keep it right."8
Louella's tour resulted in major changes. Louella instructed the movie editors to cut nearly all press releases and studio-generated publicity handouts from their sections and instead fill their pages with syndicated articles by Louella, Jerry Hoffman, and New York American writers Bland Johaneson and Regina Carewe. Louella then changed the layout of the sections by in stituting what she called a "magazine-style makeup." For eye appeal, stories would be laid out asymmetrically, with headlines in different sizes and unusual fonts. On Sundays, the motion picture and drama sections would occupy two separate pages. Louella also instituted a new column, "Movie Go Round," a compilation of Hollywood chitchat and gossip that ran alongside her usual Sunday feature article.
Though the papers for the most part adhered to the changes, throughout the 193os Louella often complained to Hearst that the movie editors depended too heavily on s
tudio press material. "Now about the San Francisco Examiner!" Louella wrote to Hearst in 1931. "One thing I find radically wrong with our Sunday page is that they use too much press matter. I suggested to [the editor] that this junk be eliminated." "Pages made up very badly. Art poor. Too many pictures. Keep all the advertising on one page. Too much press matter. Dramatic section very poor," she wrote to editor Lloyd Thompson of the San Francisco Examiner in 1931.9
The innovations rated rave reviews. Editor and Publisher called Louella's improvements a "radical transformation." The Exhibitors' Herald predicted that the revamped movie sections, with more real news and attractively pre pared pages," would bring "substantially more interest and attention" to both the Hearst papers and Hollywood. 10 At each stop on the tour, Louella was greeted by crowds of fans who bombarded her with questions about Hollywood. In San Francisco, she was honored by local theater managers and publicity directors at a banquet at the St. Francis Hotel, and in Atlanta she dined with the mayor and several local officials. The Hearst papers chronicled her cross-country adventures with photos and feature articles. "A noted columnist, Miss Louella Parsons, stepped off the transcontinental in Atlanta smartly attired in a black ensemble completed by a luxurious silver fox fur," reported the Atlanta Constitution. "From the crown of her modishly bobbed head to the soles of her smartly shod feet, she is modern to a degree as those who follow ... her daily column." As comfortable with political dignitaries as her working-class and middle-class readers, Louella was "movieland's foremost ambassador," bringing Hollywood to both the elite and the masses, the Constitution wrote. I'
When she returned to Hollywood in May 1929, a group of cheering fans, along with the Montmartre Cafe orchestra playing "Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight," greeted her at Union Station. That summer, she celebrated her birthday with an extravagant party-"Louella Parsons threw a party and two Mack trucks hauled away the gross," Variety reported-and prepared for her wedding to Harry Martin.'2
The wedding was an extravagant affair. The reception, also held at the Villa Carlotta, was wild, drunken, and attended by "everyone in Hollywood," according to the Examiner-that is, except Hearst, who was staying at San Simeon and unable to attend. Instead, Hearst sent an expensive piece of crystal as a wedding gift. "I am so glad to hear of your ... marriage," he wrote in the accompanying card. "Now that you are going to wear a ball and chain[,] maybe it will make you kinder to some of your movie friends who have done likewise."" After the reception, Louella and Harry departed for their honeymoon, a weeklong stay at Hearst's estate at San Simeon.
Unlike the haughty John Parsons, the temperamental Peter Brady, and the kind but dull Jack McCaffrey, Harry (whom Louella called "Docky") seemed the perfect match for Louella. Though feisty, witty, and bright, he was also gentle and easygoing. Other, more competitive men might have felt themselves upstaged by Louella, but Harry was content to play second fiddle, and he actively supported his wife's career. When Louella was hospitalized in 1930 for kidney problems, Harry managed her business affairs. Throughout their marriage, he negotiated contracts for Louella, did her shopping, and even became a religious mentor. Not long after the wedding, Harry introduced her to Catholicism, and the couple soon became committed and active members of the Church of the Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills. Throughout, he maintained his own successful private practice in Hollywood. At the peak of his career in the late 193os, he saw between eighty and a hundred patients a day and employed eight assistants. A popular Hollywood doctor and an abortionist and sexually transmitted disease specialist for the studios, Harry became one of Louella's informants. In flagrant violation of medical ethics, he sneaked Louella the results of actors' medical tests often before the patients had been notified.
In return, Louella used her influence to win Harry positions in the film industry and local government. In 1931, Louella convinced the studios to hire Harry as an "official advisor" on films dealing with medical issues. That year she also secured him a seat on the California State Boxing Commission. Louella had asked MGM boss Louis B. Mayer to get in touch with his friend Louis Lurie, who was on the commission. Pressured by Mayer, Lurie urged Governor Clement Young to make the appointment. Young had presidential aspirations, and Mayer, Lurie reminded the governor, could help with "MGM's resources, stars, and money." In 1932, Louella used similar tactics to earn Harry a place on the Los Angeles Board of Civil Service Commissioners. 14
Louella and Harry's relationship, according to most observers, was loving and committed. In 1947, it was still being held up as the ideal Hollywood marriage. "The example of steady devotion between Doc and Louella is something a lot of young couples in this town should emulate," wrote Variety columnist Florabel Muir. Time magazine quipped that year, "A few drinks among friends and they are necking like high school kids."15 There were occasional fights, but they were quickly forgotten. Harry's friend Jake Ehrlich, a San Francisco attorney, recalled that at least once a week during the late 193os he would "get a phone call from Doc saying, `I'm going to divorce that damn woman."' But the next day, they behaved like nothing had happened. "They used to fight but it never meant much," recalled Madalynne "Fieldsie" Lang, Carole Lombard's secretary in the 193os and one of Louella and Harry's close friends. "It all became dinner conversation." 16
Though Harry was not an alcoholic, drinking seemed to be "in his system," recalled Lang.'? Throughout Hollywood, "Docky's" drunken antics were infamous. When Lombard, in the mid-1930s, staged a Roman-themed costume party, Harry and Louella showed up in togas. Harry then proceeded to pass out in a drunken stupor, his naked crotch exposed to view beneath his toga. When Lombard pointed to his crotch and asked, "What is that?" an observer cracked, "Why that's Louella Parsons' column."" In another famous story, when a guest at a Hollywood party stooped down to revive Harry, who was drunk on the floor, Louella stopped him. "Let him sleep," Louella reportedly said. "He needs to operate in the morning."'9
Though they both drew sizable incomes, they spent it as quickly as they earned it. Not long after their honeymoon, they put a down payment on a home at 619 North Maple Drive in Beverly Hills, south of the Beverly Hills Hotel and just above Santa Monica Boulevard. The mortgage of $20,500, plus the cost of furniture and a maid, depleted their bank accounts. An incurable gambler, Louella was a fixture at the nearby Santa Anita racetrack, where she was known to bet on eight horses at once. She was also a regular guest at Agua Caliente, a Mexican gambling resort popular with the Hollywood crowd in the 193os, and she gained a reputation as a mean craps player. ("You've never shot craps unless you've shot craps with Louella," recalled fel low journalist Len Riblett.)20 "Harry might have been a restraining influence in my life and helped me overcome my tendency to regard money as something in liquid form to slip between the fingers," Louella wrote in her autobiography. "He might have. But he didn't. 1121
With her high-profile Hollywood position, her spending on clothing and jewelry became more extravagant than ever. In the late 1930s, at income tax time, after a series of depressing conferences with the tax man, Louella bought a diamond necklace. When Harry expressed concern, she assured him, "They'll let me pay for it in installments, and I'll tell the tax man it's an imitation."22 Knowing her weakness for finery, actors and producers showered her with expensive knickknacks. "Every Christmas Eve would find the greatest of the movie greats sitting on the Aubusson rug in Louella's pink and gold parlor, watching her unwrap an avalanche of gifts," recalled Anita Loos. "Two secretaries used to stand with notebooks to keep score so that Louella could remember the next day who had sent what." Loos described the "Christmas loot" as nothing short of "breathtaking": "I recall one tribute, a silver plated copy of the Eiffel Tower that doubled as a pepper grinder. I also remember an Early American spinning wheel that did duty as a floor lamp. There were bronze bookends ... [and] replicas of the Mona Lisa used to show up in all sorts of materials-ceramics, alabaster, wood-or printed on sofa cushions."23
Also contributing to Louella and Harry's indebtedness were their lavish
parties. Around Hollywood, the star-studded affairs became famous. "It was amazing, the people you saw at her parties, people you didn't see at other parties," recalled photographer Murray Garrett.24 Sometimes they entertained three hundred people in an evening, and the Maple Drive home was known around Hollywood as the "Parsons Short Order House."25 Some of the guests were friends, but most went out of obligation, fearing retribution from Louella if they failed to show up.
Louella entertained a few times a month, sometimes even weekly. On the rare quiet weekend, she and Harry went to the beach home of Bebe Daniels and her husband, Ben Lyon, in Santa Monica. Louella had been the matron of honor at the Daniels-Lyon wedding in 193o and in her column had broken the news of their daughter's birth. Though she knew of Daniels's pregnancy months in advance, she withheld the story, since Daniels had two films to finish. In an era when stars' pregnancies were often grounds for dismissal by the studios, Louella would not jeopardize her friend's career.26
Louella's most cherished weekends were spent away from Hollywood, with Hearst and Davies on the California coast. Hearst called it "the ranch." A sprawling Spanish-style castle overlooking the Pacific and set on a vast plot of land the size of Rhode Island, Hearst's San Simeon, 150 miles north of Los Angeles, was the largest and most extravagant residence in the United States. It featured acres of gardens, panoramic views, and, in each of its 165 rooms, priceless European antiques from Hearst's twenty-five-million-dollar art collection. The grand assembly room in the estate's main building, Casa Grande, featured authentic wooden pews from Renaissance churches; the dining room was ornamented with Siennese battle flags, and throughout the living quarters hung sixteenth-century French tapestries, some worth tens of thousands of dollars.
The First Lady of Hollywood Page 17