Hoping to convey an image of authority and authenticity to her readers, Louella often falsely cited the FBI as a news source. In 1934, Los Angeles agents noted that Louella had announced that Paramount Studio was going to produce a film, Private Dick, based on the life of Melvin Purvis, head of the Chicago branch of the FBI, who brought the notorious bank robber John Dillinger to justice. According to Louella, the film had been approved by the Department of Justice. The agents forwarded the column to Hoover, who claimed that the proposed production was "not authorized by this department and Purvis did not know anything about it until he saw it in the pa- pers."15 After the agents informed Paramount that "such a picture by Paramount or any other Moving Picture Company was distasteful to the Division and was not and would not be authorized," Louella quickly stopped plugging the film.16 In 1936, in reporting an extortion threat made to Ginger Rogers, Louella claimed that "federal authorities declined to comment on the case." According to a Los Angeles agent, she had "made no inquiry of this division." The FBI also received information from an unidentified informant about Louella's involvement in an alleged Hollywood prostitution ring. "Louella Parsons, Hollywood Columnist, was a former Hollywood `madam.' She is the No. i shakedown artist of prominent West Coast personalities. Her modus operandi is to invite starlets to her home on the pretext of writing a column about them. There, like a magnet, she draws her blackmailing gossip from her unsuspecting starlets [,] whom she wines and introduces to the right people, while tapping every source of extortion information," the informant claimed. The bureau appeared not to have investigated this false al- legation.'7
Louella was a personal acquaintance of Hoover's and, during her 1940 public appearance tour, had visited Hoover's office in Washington. Louella and Hoover also ran into each other at social events in Del Mar, north of San Diego." Louella was a regular at the Del Mar racetrack, and Hoover went for checkups at the nearby Scripps Clinic. In 1947 Louella received an autographed copy of The Story ofthe FBI, a promotional brochure put out by the Bureau's Crime Records Division, sent personally by the 19
In her typical support of Johnston and the Motion Picture Producers' Association, Louella used her column and radio show to prevent and contain any potential public fallout from the investigations. She admitted the presence of communists in the industry, yet assured her readers and listeners that the producers were weeding them out "in an effort to help stem this growing threat to our national safety."20 In April 1947, she did a "Woodbury Soap Box" radio editorial asking actors to refuse to appear in any films written by writers with "subversive tendencies." She later claimed that no editorial she had done on the air had received as much attention and that she received "many telegrams signed with Hollywood names commending me for my stand. Now, if we can only keep these same writers out of the studios, the battle wouldn't be so hard to win. They keep, by subtle innuendos, adding their own un-American ideas to the screen plays they write."21 Yet "the majority of Hollywood," she insisted to her fans, "[is] loyal and patriotic." "Men such as L. B. Mayer, Jack Warner, Y. Frank Freeman, and Ronald Reagan have proved devoted to American ideals. The communists in Hollywood are the exception. The motion picture industry should not be put under suspicion because a few have gone to the left," she explained.22
As part of her damage-control project, Louella also tried to clear the names of prominent Hollywood stars who had been publicly associated with communist or liberal causes. In particular, she came to the aid of the leftist actor John Garfield, who had been accused of affiliation with the Communist Party after the famous "Simonov incident" of May 1946, in which he and Charlie Chaplin attended a party sponsored by the Soviet consul, Konstantin Simonov, aboard a Soviet ship in Long Beach Harbor. U.S. customs agents, checking for dutiable articles, were waiting as guests left the ship, and Chaplin remarked, "Oh I see we are under the power of the American Gestapo." News photographers heard the comment, which became headline news in Hearst's New York journal American.23 On September 13, 1947, Louella wrote in her column, "There's never been a story in Hollywood more fascinating than that of John Garfield, who has done so much for the underdog that he's been accused of being left-wing. I'd stake anything I own that the Communist ideologies attributed to John are as repugnant to him as they are to you and me." He was her guest on the air later that week and, less than two weeks later, the subject of a Sunday feature article. Louella suggested that the reason Garfield had been accused of communism was because Garfield "always champion[ed] the little fellow and work[ed] so hard on his behalf. "24
While Louella worried about the effects of the HUAC investigation on Hollywood's profits and public image, Hopper rejoiced at the witch-hunt. Using the discussion of the investigations as a pretext, throughout 1947 she attacked the industry's liberal politics in her column and, in one particularly strident piece in August, asserted that "three pictures made during the war are definitely pro-Soviet." "Red propaganda," she continued, had appeared in the wartime films Mission to Moscow, North Star, and Song ofRussia, which were "in open praise of Russia." "What recent pictures can you recall in which a member of Congress has been presented as an honorable, intelligent, patriotic public servant; in what picture has an industrialist been shown as a straightforward, decent human being?" she asked. "There is certainly a communist threat in the world, and Hollywood is still a part-and a very influential part-of the world, so it can hardly escape."25
That year Hopper also began what would become a long and close friendship with J. Edgar Hoover. On April 7, 1947, to thank Hoover for the copy of The Story of the FBI he had sent her, Hopper wrote in a letter to Hoover,
I loved what you said about the Commies in the motion picture industry. But I would like it even more if you could name names and print more facts. Who's keeping the truth from the American public? Isn't that one of the jobs Mr. Eric Johnston was paid to do?
I'd like to run every one of those rats out of the country, starting with Charlie Chaplin. In no other country in the world would he have been allowed to do what he's done. And now he's finished another picture, and Miss Mary Pickford is back in New York helping him sell it.
It's about time we stood up to be counted.26
Hopper was scheduled to appear as a guest panelist on a broadcast of "America's Town Meeting of the Air" to debate the topic "Is There Really a Threat of Communism in Hollywood?" In August 1947, a month before the broadcast, she wrote another letter to Hoover asking for "some facts to hurl back at the angry mob" that she anticipated. "Naturally, I won't be able to accuse certain stars of being registered Communists, as even those who are deny it, always have and always will.... Your information will be confidential. I will not use your name, unless you give permission. In that case, I'd be very proud to say, Mr. J. Edgar Hoover, who is my choice for President, tells me so and so." Hoover then sent her several of his writings on communism in film, including an address before the American Legion in 1947 and a 1947 Newsweek article, "How to Fight Communism." The documents accused Soviets of planting "strong Communist factions ... in nearly every trade union" in Hollywood in the 193os and described screenwriter John Howard Lawson as "one of the most important Marxist strategists in Southern California."27
On September zi, 1947, HUAC issued subpoenas to forty-three members of the film industry requiring that they appear as witnesses at hearings in Washington scheduled for October. In response, screenwriter Philip Dunne and directors William Wyler and John Huston started the Committee for the First Amendment, a group of Hollywood liberals organized to protest HUAC and support "freedom of speech and freedom of thought." The CFA, which eventually drew more than five hundred members, chartered a plane to fly fifty prominent members to Washington to attend the hearings. Among those who went were Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, John Garfield, Jane Wyatt, Sterling Hayden, Paul Henreid, and Gene Kelly.28 In late September, perhaps not wanting to draw attention to the charges, Louella kept the discussion of the upcoming hearings out of her column and instead launched a diatribe against the n
otorious Memphis film censor Lloyd Binford, who demanded that all scenes depicting African Americans be eliminated from films prior to their exhibition in the city. In mid-October 1947, Binford had demanded a rewrite of the film Hazard to eliminate a black char acter, prompting Louella to remark, "When ... is this industry going to stop this man from attempting to run our whole motion picture business?" According to historian Kathy Feeley, Louella's remarks on Binford were intended as an oblique commentary on HUAC, to "warn of censorship and the dangers that loomed when those in authority refused to stand up for their beliefs and allowed themselves to be bullied out of fear."29
Yet Louella squarely addressed the HUAC hearings on her radio show, where she claimed in a "Woodbury Soap Box" editorial that, thanks to HUAC, "you may be sure from now on there will be no more of these red sympathizers turning out our scripts and directing our pictures. These men and women, plus the few actors accused, will have it made clear to them that there is no place in the American picture industry for anyone not too percent American in his ideals and actions. A few of these people are definitely Reds. Some of them, at one time, thought it was the smart thing to do, to be on the wrong side of the fence. Now I am glad to say the majority are coming to their senses." The piece was widely praised. Burt McMurtrie of the Tacoma Times wrote that "Louella Parsons pulled no punches when she broadcast on Sunday night her denunciation of those who have brought disrepute on Hollywood. She was completely right in her statement that such prosecution as is taking place has nothing to do with personal beliefs but [upholding] the highest lawmaking body and the US government." Another columnist praised Louella for her "forthright editorial against those who besmirch their fellow workers and the industry that makes possible their living. All credit to her for her stand and what she means to Hollywood." Later, in December 1947, several representatives of the Soviet film industry criticized Louella for the piece.30 In an open letter to Hollywood, they attacked HUAC as "the police terror of American reactionaries against the foremost leaders of American culture" and described Louella as the "author of the supreme slanders of delirium against the Soviet Union."" When Louella heard about the attack, she claimed to be "happy." "I am delighted that Hollywood has taken a stand against communism. I am also happy to be called an enemy of communism and the Soviet government, and I shall continue to fight all subversive elements as long as I have a breath of life in my body," she told reporters .12
The HUAC investigation began on October zo, 1947, a week before the CFA flight. The so-called friendly witnesses who named prominent communist sympathizers were called during the first week. The list of "friendlies" included actors Ronald Reagan, George Murphy, Gary Cooper, Robert Montgomery, Robert Taylor, and Adolphe Menjou and studio heads Louis B. Mayer and Jack Warner. Nineteen of the witnesses, most of them writers, were dubbed "unfriendly," since they refused to state whether they were members of the Communist Party or to name other party members or sympathizers. All of the nineteen, sixteen of whom were screenwriters, had in fact been members of the Communist Party or other Popular Front organizations in the 193os and had continued their involvement in pro-Soviet activities. In the end, eleven refused to testify. One of the unfriendlies, playwright Bertolt Brecht, left the country, and the remainder became known as the Hollywood Ten.33
Not only did the Ten refuse to testify, claiming their First Amendment rights, but they also took a defiant stance against HUAC, responding belligerently to the congressmen's inquiries. John Howard Lawson launched a wild verbal attack on the committee and was cited for contempt and subsequently removed from the stand by the police while screeching "Hitler Germany-Hitler tactics!"34 The other nine followed with rude and disruptive behavior, leading to more contempt citations. The Ten's bad behavior ultimately had the effect of turning support away from the CFA, which now seemed to be supporting communism. Knowing that association with the CFA, and by extension, the Hollywood Ten, could mean a loss of fans and box office revenue, the studio heads forced the actors who had taken part in the Washington flight to publicly recant.35 "Most of the cinemoguls were scared stiff by what they thought was the average moviegoer's indignation over communism in Hollywood," Time noted.36
Both Hopper and Louella subsequently attacked the CFA in their columns. Hopper called Bogart, who had been at the head of the CFA, "one of the four most dangerous men in America" and in her column quoted letters from readers who protested the CFA. "We are all movie loving folks. In fact, it is one of our main sources of entertainment. But until we are sure that Katie Hepburn ... and all others [are not] involved in any way in ... Communism, we cannot and will not attend a movie in which these people play or which they write," wrote a woman from Milwaukee.37 "We hung a huge sheet of paper on our kitchen wall. Each time new names were made public anent the un-American activities investigation, we wrote those names in with red crayon. Before attending any movie, we check cast, writers, directors against those names and, unless the picture has a clean bill of health, we cancel out," commented a reader from Colorado Springs.38
Less strident but nonetheless critical, on her November 9, 1947, radio show, Louella claimed, "Bogart was ill advised when he went to Washington to protest the procedure of the Thomas Committee. Because actors' names make news, they must be doubly careful that their motives are clearly understood. Bogie went to Washington with good intentions, but every day I receive hundreds of letters from people who insist he is a communist because there were some other people questioned at the hearing who were under sus- picion."39 "I am really sorry Humphrey Bogart got in that Washington mess, because it is going to take a while for the fans who idolize him to forget it. Most of them feel he shouldn't have put himself in the position of sympathizing with the men and women accused of being red," she told readers of her Modern Screen column. "However I don't intend to go into the Communistic question. I just want to say that no motion picture star should get mixed up in the future in any of these so-called causes. John Garfield told me he has learned his lesson and is no longer on a soapbox. 1140
Eventually, Bogart bowed to pressure from the producers and released a statement to the press that he "went to Washington because [he] thought that fellow Americans were being deprived of their constitutional rights" and that "the trip was ill-advised, even foolish." He also wrote an article for Photoplay magazine, titled "I'm No Communist," in which he admitted he had been a "dope."41 Louella then began mentioning him favorably in the column.
Meanwhile, the studio executives met in early November 1947 and planned a meeting with their New York offices to determine how to deal with the Hollywood Ten. Louella traveled to New York to cover the meeting, and on November zo wrote in her column that "the boys with Communistic ideas are going to find very hard sledding from now on in Hollywood. The producers met last week and meet this week again, and any writer or director known to have a card or to be involved with the Communists in any way will sit out his contract. New contracts, of course, will not be made with these pink-tinted gents and ladies."42 On November 2-4, 1947, when Congress voted to cite the Ten for contempt, the studio executives met for two days at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel and announced after the meeting that the Ten would be suspended without pay, and that thereafter "we will not knowingly employ a Communist or a member of any party or group which advocates the overthrow of the Government of the United States by force or by any illegal or unconstitutional methods."43 In essence, the studios instituted blacklisting. Suspected communists and prominent liberals in Hollywood on the blacklist were routinely fired or passed up for employment, and most never worked in film again. The Ten were tried for contempt in the spring and summer of 1948, and all were found guilty, fined, and sentenced to prison terms.
For Hopper, a lifelong Republican with a strict Quaker upbringing, anticommunism was a deep personal faith. For Louella-who had once been a pro-labor Democrat in her days with Peter Brady, and who had only switched party affiliation, on Hearst's urging, in the late 193os-collusion with HUAC was less a matter of personal i
deology than company policy. In early 1947, capitalizing on the widespread anti-Soviet anxiety, the Hearst papers began reprinting editorials about communist infiltration of colleges that Hearst had written at the height of his 1930s communist witch-hunt. "The Hearst papers have sounded an alarm concerning the teaching of Communism approvingly in some colleges. Communism as practiced in Russia ... is a policy of force and violence, of robbery and rapine.... It is impossible to teach the actuality of Communism approvingly without being disloyal to the policies and principles of our own country," read one editorial reprinted in February 1947. "When the editorial above was published twelve years ago, it was received by many with doubt and disbelief. Today, every thoughtful and patriotic American recognizes the solemn truth of every word that Mr. Hearst wrote."44
The Hearst papers were also the home of a cadre of vociferous right-wing columnists-most notoriously, George Sokolsky and Westbrook Pegler- who had vocally supported Joseph McCarthy and had claimed that the film industry was "reeking with communism."45 J. B. "Doc" Matthews, a former researcher for the prewar congressional anticommunism committee headed by Martin Dies, worked as an editorial assistant to the publisher of the New York journal American. He brought to the Hearst organization an unpublished listing of over one hundred thousand individuals associated with various communist fronts-names of individuals often smeared in various Hearst publications for being "red" or "pink."46 Anticommunism, in short, was de rigueur for Hearst writers. Louella also supported the studios' policy of blacklisting, a tactic she had been using for years.
In 1947, Louella blacklisted Frank Sinatra, banishing his name from her column in response to Sinatra's troubles with the MGM studio over It Happened in Brooklyn, about a soldier returning to civilian life after the war. Sinatra had problems with the script and wanted the shooting schedule changed to accommodate the demands of his career as a singer. "I won't be surprised if MGM and Frank Sinatra part company. Frank's been a very difficult boy on the lot, and I have a feeling MGM won't put up with any such nonsense.... I have always liked Frankie, but I think right now he needs a good talking to," she wrote in a November 1946 column.47 In response, Sinatra sent a telegram to her that read: "I'll begin in part by saying that if you care to make a bet I'll be glad to take your money that MGM and Frank Sinatra do not part company, permanently or otherwise. In the future I'll appreciate your not wasting your breath on any lectures because when I feel I need one I'll seek advice from someone ... who tells the truth. You have my permission to print this if you so desire and clear up a great injustice." In January 1947 she announced, as one of her New Year's resolutions, "I'm going to quit picking on Frankie Sinatra, because I think he's a mixed up boy right now. I'm not going to sass him no matter how many snippy telegrams and clippings he sends me."48
The First Lady of Hollywood Page 35