Louella's legacy lives on in the culture of celebrity and the public fascination with gossip that she birthed and bred. The period immediately after her death saw an unprecedented interest in gossip and the truth "behind the scenes"a response in large part to the press coverage of the closed-door machinations behind the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal. Press scrutiny of both events led to public awareness of the deception that underlay power. In response to "appetites whetted by ... Watergate," Newsweek wrote in 1976, newspapers began running, in both gossip columns and "hard news" stories, an increasing amount of intimate information on public figures' private lives.64 The lines between gossip and news had blurred, and the nature of fame had changed. By the late 1970s, as critic John Lahr wrote in a 1978 essay in Harper's magazine, visibility had become "an end in itself" Names were more important than deeds, and the multimedia publicity surrounding the famous so vast and grandiose that actual accomplishments were almost superfluous. It was a logical, albeit disturbing, outcome of a decades-long process of celebrity-making that Louella had helped initiate-in retrospect, quite innocuously-with her "Flickerings from Filmland" fifty years earlier.65
As for Louella, she has lived on in the public imagination largely in caricature. In 1972, George Eells published a dual biography, Hedda andLouella, a book that focused heavily on the feud and portrayed both women as shrewish and neurotic "gossip monsters" who used their careers to compensate for troubled and unfulfilled personal lives.66 The book was made into a 1985 television film, "Malice in Wonderland," starring Jane Alexander as Hopper and Liz Taylor playing a shrill and high-strung Louella. "Miss Taylor clearly gets a great deal of pleasure from her nifty impersonation of the whining Lolly," noted the New York Times' John O'Connor, knowing undoubtedly Taylor's real-life animosity toward Louella.67 The film prompted an article in People magazine in which Taylor described Louella as "dumpy, dowdy, and dedicated to nastiness. Forget anybody that stood in her way. And her voice ... so irritating. You just wanted to smack her."68
In 1999, Louella's role in the suppression of Citizen Kane was rehashed in an HBO film, RKO 28z. Her alleged cover-up of Hearst's murder ofThomas Ince was depicted in The Cat's Meow, a zoos film by Peter Bogdanovich. To audiences today, Louella has become a loathed and mocked symbol of an earlier era of media history, a time that seems at once positively feudal-stars kowtowing in terror while Louella, Hearst, and the moguls connived to ruin careers-and charmingly naive. There is something almost innocent about the image of Louella in a satin dressing gown in her bedroom with three ivory telephones ringing, a teletype clacking, and Dorothy Manners taking down dictation on a rickety manual typewriter. Compared to the large-scale political and corporate control of the press during and since the Vietnam era, and the transnational, multibillion-dollar, electronic-push-of-a-button varieties of media manipulation in our own day, Louella's methods, no matter how malicious in intent, seem downright quaint.
After Louella's death, Harriet tried to dispel many of the myths about her mother. Harriet and her adopted daughter, a dancer, Evelyn Farney, retired to Beverly Hills, where in 1982 Harriet began writing a memoir. She devoted an entire chapter of the book to debunking the rumors about Louella, including the Thomas Ince story. The book was never published. Harriet died in 1983 after a two-year battle with cancer, at the age of seventy-six.69
The title of the book, fittingly, was "I Didn't Tell Mother." Though she had a successful career, Harriet spent her life troubled by her relationship with Louella, whose formidable reputation, she felt, obscured her own achievements. Despite her many efforts, she was never able to free herself from Louella's shadow, even in the end. The New York Times, in its obituary, referred to her as "Harriet Parsons, Film Maker; Daughter of Louella Parsons." She rests in Holy Cross Cemetery, not far from Louella's side.
PROLOGUE
i. Gene Brown, Movie Time (New York: Macmillan, 1995), 157.
2. "It Rains, but Hollywood Stars Shine at Banquet," Dixon Evening Telegraph, Sept. 16, 1941-
3. "Dixon Is Proud to Have You," Dixon Evening Telegraph, Sept. 12, i94i, LOP Scrapbook #z8, Louella Parsons Collection, Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills, California (hereafter AMPAS).
4- "It Rains."
5. "Dixon Day-Louella's Home," Chicago HeraldAmerican, Sept. 15, i94i, LOP Scrapbook #z8, AMPAS.
6. "The City's Keys Are Yours," Dixon Evening Telegraph, Sept. 16, 1941,
ONE. EARLY YEARS
i. Mary Barrett, History of Stephenson County (Freeport, IL: County of Stephenson, 1972), 636.
2. Ibid., 634•
3. Benjamin McArthur, Actors and American Culture, z88o-zy2o (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1984), x.
4. Ibid., chap. 5.
5. Ibid., 151.
6. Barrett, History of Stephenson County, 566.
7. On theatrical fan culture, see McArthur, Actors and American Culture, chap. 6.
8. Los Angeles Examiner (hereafter LAE), Sept. a,1940.
9. History of Stephenson County, Illinois (Chicago: Western Historical Company, i88o), 655.
1o. Ibid.
ii. Freeport City Directory (n.p., 1884).
12. Louella Parsons, The Gay Illiterate (hereafter GI) (New York: Doubleday Doran, 1944), 7. Before she was eighteen, she wrote her name "Luella," since this was what appeared on her birth certificate. It was not until high school that she changed the spelling to "Louella."
13. "The Star Clothing House," Illustrated Freeport, 140-41, George Eells Collection, University of Southern California (hereafter Eells Collection, USC).
14. There were a few prosperous and well-respected Jewish merchants in Freeport, including Jacob Krohn, who had served as mayor in the 1870s. On Krohn, see Portrait and Biographical Album, Stephenson County, Illinois (Chicago: Chapman Brothers, 1888), 279-81; "City Loses a Leader," Freeport Daily Bulletin, June 21, 1901, 1.
15. Sterling City Directory (n.p., 189o). Joshua and Helen did not record Louella's birth until 1886, when Edwin was born; for unknown reasons, Louella's and Edwin's births were reported on the same birth certificate.
16. GI, 10.
17. LAE, Aug. 7, 1949.
18. "The Late Joshua Oettinger," Freeport Daily Democrat, May 31, 1890, 4.
19. Sterling Gazette, May 30, 189o.
2o. Sterling Democrat, May 29, 1890.
21. "The Climax of Love," Freeport Daily journal, Dec. 16, 1891, 4.
22. Louella's cousin Maggie Ettinger later attributed Louella's inability to manage money to Helen's excesses. "Extravagance," Maggie claimed, "is in her blood." Isabella Taves, "Louella Parsons," Look, Oct. 10, 1950, 62.
23. LAE, Mar. 19, 1944; Jan. 23, 1949; Dec. it, 1950.
24. LAE, Sept. 8, 1947; Mar. 24, 1947; July 20, 1939-
25. Frances Hodgson Burnett, Fditha's Burglar (New York: H. M. Caldwell, 1888), to.
26. GI, 9.
27. "The Climax of Love," 4.
28. GI, to.
29. LAE, Nov. 6, 1938, V, 5-
30. "News about People You Know," Freeportjournal Standard, Feb. 18, 1959, to.
31. LAE, Sept. 26,1939,1, 9.
32. History of Stephenson County, Illinois, 554-
33. Ishbel Ross, Ladies ofthe Press (New York: Harper, 1936), 56; Brooke Kroeger, Nellie Bly: Daredevil, Reporter, Feminist (New York: Times Books, 1994).
34. Though Louella claimed in her autobiography that her story "The Flower Girl of New York" appeared in the Freeport journal Standard, Donald Breed, whose father was editor at the time, claimed that this was "wishful thinking." Letter from Donald Breed to George Eells, Mar. 15, 1968, Eells Collection, USC.
35. Author's conversation with anonymous, Lee County Genealogical Society, June 25, 2001.
36. "Dixon Plans Louella Parsons Day Sep. 15," clipping, n.d., LOP Scrapbook #28, Louella Parsons Collection, Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills, California (hereafter AMPAS).
37. Barrett, History of Stephenson County, 557.
&n
bsp; 38. By 1890, more than 15 percent of the workforce was female. See Nancy Woloch, Women and the American Experience (New York: McGraw Hill, 1984), 220-
39. On the rise of the "new woman," see Patricia Marks, Bicycles, Bangs, and Bloomers: The New Woman in the Popular Press (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 199o); Woloch, Women and the American Experience, chap. 12.
40. GI, 9, 12.
41. GI, 9.
42. Freeport City Directory (n.p., 1898).
43. Anthony Trollope, North America (Philadelphia: n.p., 186z), 172-77.
44. The Standard General and Business Directory of the City of Dixon, Illinois (Dixon: Twentieth Century Directory Company, 1905), 15-
45. Bob Gibler, Dixon, Illinois (Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 1998), 88.
46. LAE, Nov. 4, 1946; Apr. 4, 1932.
47. On Chautauqua, see Charlotte Canning, "The Most American Thing in America: Producing National Identities in Chautauqua," in Performing America: Cultural Nationalism in American Theater, ed. J. Ellen Gainor and Jeffery D. Mason (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999), 91-1o5; Joseph Gould, The Chautauqua Movement: An Episode in the Continuing American Revolution (New York: State University of New York Press, 1961).
48. Gibler, Dixon, 67.
49. LAE, Apr. 19, 1943, II, 5-
50. "The Twentieth Century Class," Dixon Evening Telegraph, June 4, 1901, 7.
51. "Mrs. Goodsell Writes Sketch," Dixon Evening Telegraph, Sept. 11, 1941, LOP Scrapbook #z8, AMPAS; "The Twentieth Century Class," 7.
52. Marion Marzolf, Up from the Footnote: A History of Woman journalists (New York: Hastings House, 1977), 21.
53 E. A. Bennett, Journalism for Women; a Practical Guide (New York: J. Lane, 1898).
54. "Parsons Girl to Inherit Money for Education," Dixon Evening Telegraph, Mar. 12, 1915, I.
55. GI, 13-
56. Frank Everett Stevens, History ofLee County (Chicago: S. J. Clarke, 194), 337, 342-
57. "Obituary," Dixon Evening Telegraph, Mar. 13, 1913, 4; "E. C. Parsons Died This Morning," July 27, 1913, I.
58. "Dixon Plans Louella Parsons Day."
59. "Society Doings," Dixon Star, May 8, 1902, 3-
6o. James West, Plainville, USA (New York: Columbia University Press, 1945) 45
61. Gary Alan Fine, Rumor and Gossip: The Social Psychology of Hearsay (New York: Elsevier, 1976), chap. 6; also see Max Gluckman, "Gossip and Scandal," Cur rent Anthropology 4, no. 3 (June 1963): 307-16; Robert Paine, "What Is Gossip About? An Alternative Hypothesis," Man z, no. 2 (June 1967): 278-85-
62. Patricia Spacks, Gossip (New York: Knopf, 1984); Melanie Tebbutt, Women's Talk: A Social History of Gossip in Working-Class Neighborhoods (Brookfield, VT: Ashgate, 1995).
63. Louella O. Parsons, "Hollywood Is My Home Town," Cosmopolitan, Sept. 1934,48-
64. Miscellaneous clipping from an unidentified Paris newspaper, July 1948, LOP Scrapbook #37, AMPAS.
65. Dixon Telegraph, Aug. 29, 1914, 1.
66. Clipping, n.d., LOP Scrapbook #28, AMPAS.
67. Louella Parsons, Tell It to Louella (New York: Putnam, 1961), 98.
68. "Her First Job," Dixon Evening Telegraph, Sept. 12,1941, LOP Scrapbook #28, AMPAS.
69. Harriett Gustason, Looking Back, vol. i (Freeport, IL: Stephenson County Historical Society, 1994), 6z.
70. GI, 15-
71. "Social Events," Dixon Star, Nov. 1, 1905,3-
72. "Social Events," Dixon Evening Telegraph, Oct. z8, 1905, 5-
73. Clipping, n.d., Louella Parsons Clipping File, AMPAS.
74. Sadie Mack, interview by George Eells, n.d., George Eells Collection, Arizona State University (hereafter Eells Collection, ASU).
75. Adeline Churchill, interview by George Eells, June 11, 1969, Eells Collection, ASU.
76. Federal Writers' Project, A Guide to Burlington, Iowa (Burlington, IA: Acres- Blackmar, 1939), 7.
77. Helen Turner McKim and Helen Parsons, Burlington on the Mississippi, 1833-1,983 (Burlington, IA: Doran and Ward, 1983), 59 -
78. George Eells, Hedda and Louella (New York: Putnam, 1972), 36.
79. Philip Jordan, Catfish Bend, River Town, and County Seat (Burlington, IA: Craftsman Press, 1975), 151-
8o. McKim and Parsons, Burlington on the Mississippi, 6o-6i; "The Opera House," Burlington Commercial Statistical Review (n.p., 1882), 38-
81. Mrs. Martin Bruhl, interview by George Eells, June 8, 1969, Eells Collection, ASU.
82. Eells, Hedda and Louella, 37.
83. LAE, Sept. 1, 1948, II, 3.
84. Clipping, Sept. 2o, 1969, Eells Collection, USC.
85. Letter to unknown from Margaret Smith, June zo, 1969, Parsons Clipping File, Burlington Public Library, Burlington, Iowa.
86. GI, 16.
87. For unknown reasons, Harriet's birth certificate was not filed until January 15, 1907.
88. Martin Bruhl, letter to George Eells, July zr, 1969; Margaret Clark, n.d., interview by George Eells, Eells Collection, ASU.
89. Martin Bruhl, letter to George Eells, July ii, 1969, Eells Collection, ASU.
9o. Robert Allen, "The Movies in Vaudeville: Historical Context of the Movies as Popular Entertainment," in TheAmerican Film Industry, ed. Tino Balio (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), 57-82-
91. Charles Musser, The Emergence of Cinema: The American Screen to 1907 (New York: Scribner's, 1990), 104, 162.
92. Kathryn Fuller, At the Picture Show: Small Town Audiences and the Creation of Movie Fan Culture (Washington, DC: Smithsonian, 1996), z8.
93. On opposition to the cinema by religious and social reform groups, see Fuller, At the Picture Show, chap. 4; and Lary May, Screening Out the Past: The Birth ofMass Culture and theMotion Picture Industry (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), chap. 3.
94. Fuller, At the Picture Show, 40-
95. Ad for the Lyric Theater from the Burlington Gazette, Sept. 4, 1909, 5-
96. GI, 19.
97. Barton Currie, "Nickel Madness," Harrier's Weekly, Aug. 24, 1907, 1246-47.
98. Gustason, Looking Back, io8.
99. "Burlington Opera House Wrecked by Dynamite," Burlington Hawkeye, Sept. 3, 1910,
TWO. ESSANAY
i. Theodore Dreiser, The Titan (1914; reprint, New York: World Publishing, 1946),3-4-
2. Robert G. Spinney, City ofBig Shoulders: A History ofChicago (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2000), 123-
3. Joanne Meyerowitz, Women Adrift: Independent Wage Earners in Chicago, 1880-1930 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 4-5, 9-
4. Louella Parsons, The Gay Illiterate (hereafter GI) (New York: Doubleday Doran, 1944), 18-
5- Ibid.
6. Eileen Bowser, The Transformation of Cinema, 2907 1915 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 199o), 6.
7. On the origins of the star system, see Richard De Cordova, Picture Personalities (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1990), 58-59; Samantha Barbas, Movie Crazy: Fans, Stars, and the Cult of Celebrity (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, zoos), 19-21.
8. Kathryn Fuller, At the Picture Show: Small Town Audiences and the Creation of Movie Fan Culture (Washington, DC: Smithsonian, 1996), 138.
9. "Notes of the Picture Players," Motion Picture, June 1912, 138-
io. De Cordova, Picture Personalities, io5-6.
1i. Quoted in ibid., 103-
12. Moving Picture World, Oct. 1913, quoted in Fuller, At the Picture Show, 126.
13- Elaine Sterne, "Writing for the Movies as a Profession," Photoplay, Sept. 1914, 156.
14. Charles Jahant, "The Early Chicago Film Industry," 47, Essanay Clipping File, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills, California.
15. Ibid., 47.
16. Bowser, Transformation of Cinema, 151-
17. GI, Z5-27-
18. Eric Ergenbright, "Louella Parsons," Dixon Telegraph, Dec. 14, 1936, 5.
19. This information appeared on Louella and Jack McCaffrey's marriage license from Lake County, Indiana, Jan. 12,
1915.
20. "Lt. Parsons Weds," Dixon Evening Telegraph, Aug. 6, 1918, 3.
zi. "John Edwards of Amboy Called by Maker This Morn," Dixon Evening Telegraph, Oct. 2,1931.
22. See Bowser, Transformation of Cinema, chap. 1.
23. Los Angeles Examiner (hereafter LAE), Sept. 30, 1934, V, 5-
24. Louella Parsons Oral History, Popular Arts Collection, Butler Library, Columbia University (hereafter LPOH), 84-
25. LAE, May 29, 1931-
26. LAE, Jan. 7, 1930.
27. LAE, May 3, 1936, V, 7.
28. Louella O. Parsons, "The Essanay Days," TheatreArts, July 1951, 33-
29. Lawrence Quirk, The Films of Gloria Swanson (Secaucus, NJ: Citadel Press, 1984), n.p.
30- "The Magic Wand," Moving Picture World, Aug. 11, 1912; Richard J. Maturi and Mary Buckingham Maturi, Beverly Bayne, Queen of the Movies (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, zoos), 117.
31. "Harriet Parsons Here in Moving Pictures," Dixon Evening Telegraph, Nov. 26, 1912, 1.
32. Ad for Essanay, Moving Picture World, Nov. 8, 1912, 511-
33• "Photoplays from Essanay's," Motography, Oct. 26, 1912.
34, Monte M. Katterjohn, "Thumbnail Biographies," Photoplay, Sept. 1914, 166.
35. GI, 27.
36. Bowser, Transformation ofCinema, 242-
37. James S. McQuade, "Chicago Letter," Moving Picture World, Jan. 25, 1913-
38. "It's Old Stuff, but It's Good," Chicago Tribune, June 2,1915.
39- "Bushman Thanking Friends," Motography, June 13, 1914, 416.
40. Gloria Swanson, Swanson on Swanson (New York: Random House, 1980), 42.
The First Lady of Hollywood Page 46