The First Lady of Hollywood
Page 47
41. LPOH, 89.
42. Neil G. Caward, "Where the Artistic Temperament Is Fed," Motography, Christmas 1913, 461-62.
43. Herb Graffis, "Lolly and Her Pups," Radio News, n.d., LOP Scrapbook #25, Louella Parsons Collection, Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills, California; LAE, Nov. 23, 1931, I.
44. Roy L McCardell, "Writing for the Movies," Saturday Evening Post, May 16, 1914, 42.
45• "Thumbnail Biographies," Photoplay, Sept. 1914, 166.
46. Lizzie Francke, Script Girls: Women Screenwriters in Hollywood (London: British Film Institute, 1994), chap. 1; Anthony Slide, Early Women Directors (South Brunswick, NJ: A. J. Barnes, 1977), chap. r; also see Cari Beauchamp, Without Lying Down: Frances Marion and the Powerful Women ofEarly Hollywood (New York: Scribner, 1997).
47. Dixon Telegraph, Aug. 29, 1914, 1.
48. "Essanay Foreign Sales Unaffected," Motography, Oct. 3, 1914, 454.
49. "Essanay Growing," Motography, Jan. 10, 1914,30-
50. "Essanay Not Buying," Motography, Oct. 30, 1915, 909.
51. LPOH, 73.
52. JohnMcPhaul,DeadlinesandMonkeyshines:TheFabledWorldofChicagoJour- nalism (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1964), 224-
53. LPOH, 73.
54. Chicago Herald, Dec. 20, 1914, 6.
55. Chicago Herald, Apr. 12, 1915-
56. LPOH, 92.
57. Jack McCaffrey obituary, Tallulah (LA) Madison journal, Sept. 6, 1957.
58. Letter from Adeline Churchill to George Fells, June 24, 1969, George Eells Collection, Arizona State University (hereafter Fells Collection, ASU).
59. Katharine Ward, interview by George Fells, Sept. 1, 1969, Eells Collection, ASU.
6o. Letter from Adeline Churchill to George Eells, June 24, 1969, Eells Collection, ASU.
61. Charles Chaplin, My Autobiography (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1964), 16.
62. Letter from Martha Sevier to George Eells, Dec. 20, 1970, Eells Collection, ASU.
63. Katharine Ward, interview by George Eells.
64. "Mrs. Parsons Married," Dixon Evening Telegraph, Jan. 12, 1915, 3•
65. "Elopement Story False," Dixon Telegraph, Feb. 2, 1915, 3•
66. "Mrs. Bailie," interview by George Eells, n.d., Eells Collection, ASU.
THREE. THE COLUMN
i. "Seen on the Screen," Chicago Herald, Mar. 15, 1916.
2. Charles Ponce de Leon, Self-Exposure: Human Interest journalism and the Emergence of Celebrity in America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2oo2), 52, 44-
3. Ibid., chap. i.
4. Neal Gabler, Winchell: Gossip, Power, and the Culture of Celebrity (New York: Knopf, 1994), 78.
5. Benjamin McArthur, Actors and American Culture, 1880-ly2o (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1984), 149-
6. Garth Jowett, "A Capacity for Evil: The 1915 Supreme Court Mutual Decision," in Controlling Hollywood: Censorship and Regulation in the Studio Era, ed. Matthew Bernstein (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1999), 22.
7. "Viewing the Pics," Motography, Aug. 22, 194,280-
8. Garth Jowett, Film, the Democratic Art (Boston: Little, Brown, 1976), 146.
9. Ibid., 146, italics in the original. For the first influential study of the psychological effects of the movies, see Hugo Munsterberg, The Photoplay: A Psychological Study (New York: D. Appleton, 1916).
1o. Jowett, "A Capacity for Evil," 31.
ii. Jane Addams, The Spirit ofYouth and the City Streets (New York: Macmillan, 1909), 9.
12. Munsterberg, The Photoplay.
13. "Nickel Theaters Crime Breeders," Chicago Tribune, Apr. 13, 1907. On female audiences, and on opposition to women's moviegoing in the early twentieth century, see Kathy Peiss, Cheap Amusements: Working Women and Leisure in Turn of the Century New York (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1986); Nan Enstad, Ladies of Labor, Girls ofAdventure: Working Women, Popular Culture, and Labor Politics at the Turn ofthe Twentieth Century (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999); Miriam Hansen, Babel and Babylon: Spectatorship in American Silent Film (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991).
14. See Lary May, Screening out the Past: The Birth ofMass Culture and the Motion Picture Industry (New York: Oxford University Press, 198o); Robert Sklar, Movie-Made America: A Cultural History ofAmerican Movies (New York: Vintage, 1994); Francis Couvares, ed., Movie Censorship andAmerican Culture (Washington, DC: Smithsonian, 1996).
15. Jowett, Film, 12.
16. "Seen on the Screen," Apr. 23, 1916, 4-
17. The concept of "mothering the movies" was used by the Women's Christian Temperance Union in their campaign for state and federal film censorship. See Alison Parker, "Mothering the Movies," in Movie Censorship andAmerican Culture, ed. Francis Couvares (Washington, DC: Smithsonian, 1996).
18. "Seen on the Screen," Aug. 14, 1917.
19. "Seen on the Screen," Apr. 30, 1915-
2,o. "Seen on the Screen," Apr. 12, 1915-
21. Louella Parsons, "How to Write Photoplays," Chicago Herald, Mar. 14, 1915, 6.
22. Letter from LOP to Mr. Harrison, July 24, 1916, Redpath Chautauqua Collection, University of Iowa Special Collections.
23. "Seen on the Screen," June 24, 1915, 8-
24. Eve Golden, Vamp: The Rise and Fall ofTheda Bara (Vestal, NY: Empire Publishing, 1996), 39-
2,5. "The Case for the Defense," n.d., LOP Scrapbook #1, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills, California (hereafter AMPAS).
2,6. "Seen on the Screen," Mar. 15, 1916.
27. "Let It Stay Barred," Chicago Herald, May 17, 1915, 6.
28. "Seen on the Screen," May z6, 1915-
29. "D. W. Griffith in Plea for His Greatest Film," Chicago Herald, June 1, 1915-
30. "Chicago Court's Epoch-making Decision," Motography, June i9,1915, 1.
31. Louella Parsons Oral History, Popular Arts Collection, Butler Library, Columbia University, New York (hereafter LPOH), xv, 98; Ethel M. Colson Brazelton, Writing and Editing for Women (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1927), 142-
32. Louella Parsons, How to Write for the Movies (Chicago: McClurg, 1915), 132-
33. "Mrs. Parsons Told of Inside of Movies," Dixon Evening Telegraph, Aug. 8, 1916, 1.
34. "Former Dixon Woman Reaches High Position in Movie-Land," Dixon Evening Telegraph, Aug. 16, 1916,1.
35. Letter from LOP to Mr. Harrison, July 24, 1916, Redpath Chautauqua Collection, University of Iowa Special Collections.
36. Clipping, n.d., LOP Scrapbook #49, AMPAS.
37. Letter from LOP to Mr. McClure, Aug. 11, 1916, Redpath Chautauqua Collection, University of Iowa Special Collections.
38. "Former Dixon Woman," I.
39. "Seen on the Screen," Jan. 14, 1916.
40. Brazelton, Writing and Editing for Women, 144.
41. William McAdams, Ben Hecht: The Man behind the Myth (New York: Scribner's, 199o), 276.
42. "Seen on the Screen," June 11, 1915-
43. Los Angeles Examiner (hereafter LAE), July 2,1942, I,19.
44. "Seen on the Screen," May 8, 1915-
45. Richard Koszarski, An Evening's Entertainment: The Age of the Silent Feature Picture, 1915-1928 (New York: Scribner's, 1990), 93-
46. "Seen on the Screen," July 3, 1915.
47. On sob sisters, see Joe Saltzman, "Sob Sisters: The Image of the Female Journalist in Popular Culture," Image of the Journalist in Popular Culture, www.ijpc .org/sobsessay.pdf (accessed January 21, 2005).
48. Editor and Publisher, Aug. 14,1926, LOP Scrapbook #14, AMPAS.
49. LAE, July z6, 1936, V, 5.
50. Hollywood Reporter, Mar. 25, 1948, 2.
51. LPOH, 44.
52. Letter from Rae Shepard to George Eells, Feb. 3, 1969, George Eells Collection, University of Southern California.
53. Script for Hollywood Premiere radio show, Mar. 28, 1948, Louella Parsons Collection, Cinema Television Library, University of Southern California.
54. "Seen on the Screen," Nov. 13,
1917, LOP Scrapbook #2, AMPAS.
55. Louella Parsons, The Gay Illiterate (hereafter GI) (New York: Doubleday Doran, 1944), 35-
56. Ibid.
57. W. A. Swanberg, Citizen Hearst (New York: Scribner's, 1961), 107.
58. Ibid., 66.
59. Ibid., 127.
6o. Ibid., 327.
61. JohnMcPhaul,DeadlinesandMonkeyshines:TheFabledWorldofChicagoJour- nalism (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1964), 220-21.
62. Swanberg, Citizen Hearst, 349•
63. David Nasaw, The Chief The Life of William Randolph Hearst (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, zooo), 268.
64. GI, 39-
65. Louella Parsons, "Propaganda!" Photoplay, Sept. 1918, 43.
66. LAE, Mar. 15, 1936.
67. LAE, Aug. 6, 1939, V, 5.
68. GI, 4i.
FOUR. NEW YORK
1. Richard Koszarski, An Evening's Entertainment: The Age of the Silent Feature Pic- ture,1915 1928 (New York: Scribner's,1990), 99, ,o2; Eileen Bowser, The Transformation of Cinema, 1907 1915 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 159, 161.
2. Koszarski, Evening's Entertainment, 99-104.
3. Benjamin B. Hampton, History of the American Film Industry (New York: Dover, 1970), 24-
4. Alfred McClung Lee, The Daily Newspaper in America (New York: Macmillan, 1947), 69, 71, 81, 84-
5. Adeline Churchill, interview by George Eells, n.d., George Eells Collection, Arizona State University.
6. Richard O'Connor, Heywood Braun: A Biography (New York: Putnam, 1975), z6.
7. William R. Taylor, In Pursuit of Gotham: Culture and Commerce in New York (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 174-
8. O'Connor, Heywood Broun, 27-29.
9. Louella Parsons Oral History, Popular Arts Collection, Butler Library, Columbia University, 91.
io. New York Morning Telegraph (hereafter NYMT), June 9, 1918, LOP Scrapbook #2, Louella Parsons Collection, Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills, California (hereafter AMPAS); "Dixon Woman Now on Big NY Daily," Dixon Evening Telegraph, June 14,
ii. NYMT, Jan. 5, 1919, LOP Scrapbook #2, AMPAS.
12. NYMT, Feb. 16, 1919; May 1, 1921, LOP Scrapbook #2, AMPAS.
13. On the paradox of film stardom-stars' ordinariness yet extraordinariness-see Richard Dyer, Stars (London: BFI, 1998), chap. 2; Dyer, Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society (New York: St. Martin's, 1986); also Richard Schickel, Intimate Strangers (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1985); and John Ellis, "Stars as Cinematic Phenomenon," in Visible Fictions: Cinema, Television, Video (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982), 91-108.
14. Louella Parsons, The Gay Illiterate (hereafter GI) (New York: Doubleday Doran, 1944), 35-
15. Denver Post, Oct. 25, 1927, LOP Scrapbook #15, AMPAS.
i6. Los Angeles Examiner (hereafter LAE), July 12,
17. "Theodora Bean, Writer, Is Dead," New York Times (hereafter NYT), Aug. 6, 1926.
18. Ishbel Ross, Ladies ofthe Press (New York: Harper, 1936), 258-
19. LAE, June 8,1944; David Pratt, "O Lubitsch, Where WertThou?" Wide Angle 13, no. i (Jan. 1991): 42-
2o. GI, 64; David Thomson, Showman: The Life ofDavid O. Selznick (New York: Knopf, 1992), 57.
21. LAE, May 16, 1931, II, 5-
22. NYMT, Apr. z, 192,2, LOP Scrapbook #6, AMPAS; Sept. 27, 1918, LOP Scrapbook #4, AMPAS.
23. NYMT, May 3, 1921, LOP Scrapbook #5, AMPAS.
24. Ross, Ladies ofthe Press, 246.
25. Elizabeth V. Burt, ed., Women's Press Organizations, 1881-1999 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, zooo), 172-73-
26. Ibid., 175-
27. NYMT, Jan. 29, 1922, LOP Scrapbook #6, AMPAS; "Women Writers Hail Celebrities at Annual Fete," clipping, n.d., LOP Scrapbook #10, AMPAS; Variety, Feb. 24,1926, LOP Scrapbook #io, AMPAS; NYMT, Mar. 19, 1922, LOP Scrapbook #6, AMPAS.
28. George Eells, Hedda and Louella (New York: Putnam, 1972), 88; NYMT, Dec. 29, 1921, LOP Scrapbook #5, AMPAS.
29. GI, 51.
30. NYMT, Mar. 30, 1919, LOP Scrapbook #4, AMPAS; NYMT, Oct. 21, 1921, LOP Scrapbook #5, AMPAS; Sumner Smith, "Charles Ray Stands the Acid Test of Praise at Luncheon for Newspapermen," Moving Picture World, Dec. 17, 1921.
31. "N.A.M.P.I. Entrenches in Massachusetts for First Censorship Referendum Battle," Moving Picture World, Oct. 15, 1921, 753-
32. GI, 47.
33. Manners quoted in Amy Fine Collins, "Idol Gossips," Vanity Fair (Apr. 1997): 360; GI, 47, 6o.
34. "Peter Brady Killed as Plane Hits House," NYT, Sept. zi, 1931, 1; NYT, Apr. 25, 1916, 4; "Hylan," NYT, Jan. 2, 1918, 1; "Citizens Oppose Politics in Schools," NYT, Jan. 29, 1921, 7.
35. NYT, May 8, 1922, i9; "Denies Governor's Claim to Economy," NYT, June z6, 1922, 14; "Against Film Censorship," NYT, Sept. 18, 1922, 12; "Organized Labor Is Screen's Champion, Moving Picture World, Oct. 29, 1921, 1021.
36. "The Late Peter J. Brady," NYT, Sept. 2-4, 1931, 24-
37. Program for the Fourth Annual Dinner Dance of the Motion Picture Directors' Association, Mar. 16, 1922, in Douglas Gomery, ed., The Will Hays Papers (Frederick, MD.: University Publications of America, 1988), microfilm, reel 4; "Hay's Debut," Moving Picture World, Apr. 1, 1922, 454-
38. NYMT, Mar. 12, 1922, Apr. 21, 1922, LOP Scrapbook #6, AMPAS.
39. NYMT, Mar. 29, 1922, LOP Scrapbook #6, AMPAS; Feb. 23, 1922, Sept. 15, 1923, LOP Scrapbook #7, AMPAS.
40. "Pictures and People," Motion Picture News, May 20, 1922, 2829; undated note in LOP Scrapbook #6, AMPAS.
41. GI, 6o.
FIVE. THE LOVELY MISS MARION DAVIES
1. Louella Parsons, Tell It to Louella (New York: Putnam, 1961), 219.
2. Marion Davies, The Times We Had (New York: Bobbs Merrill, 1975).
3. Dorothy Day, "What One Critic Thinks and Says about Another," FBO News, Dec. 15, 1923, LOP Scrapbook #Io, Louella Parsons Collection, Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills, California (hereafter AMPAS).
4. Frances Marion, Offwith Their Heads! (New York: Macmillan, 1972), 8z.
5. Louella Parsons, The Gay Illiterate (hereafter GI) (New York: Doubleday Doran, 1944), 101.
6. On Bebe Daniels, see Bebe Daniels and Ben Lyon, Life with the Lyons (London: Odhams, 1953).
7. Hedda Hopper, From under My Hat (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1952), 129.
8. Marion Davies, Offwith Their Heads.; 97.
9. Anita Loos, A Girl Like I (New York: Viking, 1966), zo8.
1o. New York City Mirror, Apr. 28, 1925, LOP Scrapbook #1o, AMPAS.
ii. GI, 46.
12. New York Morning Telegraph (hereafter NYMT), Jan. 18, 1922, LOP Scrapbook #6, AMPAS; GI, 59-
13. "Mrs. J. Edwards, Former Freeport Woman, Expires," Freeport journal Standard, Dec. 30, 1922, 6.
14. Louella Parsons Oral History, Popular Arts Collection, Butler Library, Columbia University, 64.
15. Louis Pizzitola, Hearst over Hollywood (New York: Columbia University Press, 2oo2), 126; NYMT, Mar. 9, 1919, LOP Scrapbook #4, AMPAS.
i6. Fred Lawrence Guiles, Marion Davies (New York: Bantam, 1973), 71, 80; Pizzi- tola, Hearst over Hollywood, 166.
17. Guiles, Marion Davies, 67.
18. Adela Rogers St. Johns, The Honeycomb (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1969), 143; Davies, The Times We Had, 21.
19. Pizzitola, Hearst over Hollywood, 169.
20. "Knighthood in Chicago Opens Tremendously," Variety, Oct. 20, 1922, 44; "Knighthood Beats Robin Hood to First Chicago Opening," Variety, Oct. 13, 1922, 46; "Inside Stuff on Pictures," Variety, Oct. 20, 1922, 42; NYMT, Oct. 8, 1922, LOP Scrapbook #7, AMPAS.
21. NYMT, Sept. 14, Sept. 17, Dec. 22, 1922, Apr. 8, July 15, 1923, LOP Scrapbook #7, AMPAS.
22. Guiles, Marion Davies, 459; Nasaw, The Chief 324• 2 2.
23. "When Knighthood Was in Flower."
24. NYMT, Sept. 14, 1922, July 15, 1923, LOP Scrapbook #8, AMPAS.
z5. Oswald Garrison Villard, Some Newspapers and Newspaper-Men (New York: Knopf, 1923), 319,
20-
26. David Nasaw, The Chief The Life of William Randolph Hearst (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000), 455-
27- "TOCC Gives Elaborate Annual Party," Moving Picture World, Dec. 16, 1922, 630-
z8. GI, 73•
z9. GI, 71.
30. NYMT, Feb. 27, Oct. ii, Oct. 22, 1923, LOP Scrapbook #7, AMPAS.
31. "Famous Film Critic Felicitated by Craft on Joining New YorkAmerican," New York American, Dec. 9, 1923, LOP Scrapbook #10, AMPAS.
32. George Eells, Hedda and Louella (New York: Putnam, 1972), 5o; "Famous Film Critic Felicitated"; Dorothy Day, "What One Critic Thinks and Says about Another," FBO News, Dec. 15,1923; "Luncheon to Honor Miss Parsons," NYMT, Dec. 9, 1923, LOP Scrapbook#io, AMPAS; S. Jay Kaufman, "Around the Town," Evening Telegram, Dec. 9, 1923, LOP Scrapbook #10, AMPAS.
33. "Famous Film Critic Felicitated"; ad in New York American, Feb. 10, 1924, LOP Scrapbook #10, AMPAS; GI, 73-
34. Letter from Morning Telegraph to Louella Parsons, n.d., George Eells Collection, University of Southern California.
35. GI, 733•
36. Clipping, Jan. 12, 1924, LOP Scrapbook #io, AMPAS.
37. GI, 68; Swanberg, Citizen Hearst, 345•
38. Nasaw, The Chief 342-
39. Guiles, Marion Davies, 185; J. Boothe, "Thomas Ince, Director Extraordinary" Motography, May 16, 1914, 335; "Thomas Ince Dies; Producer of Films," New York Times (hereafter NYT), Nov. 20, 1924, 4-
40. "Ince Had Deal with Hearst," NYT, Nov. 21, 1924, 22.
41. Nasaw, The Chief 344.
42. The New York Times reported inaccurately that he had a heart attack on a train to San Diego. "Ince's Death Natural, Prosecutor Asserts," NYT, Dec. 11, 1924, 6.
43. Amy Fine Collins, "Idol Gossips," Vanity Fair (Apr. 1997): 368.
44. Peter Brown, The MGM Girls (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1983), 140.
45. Davies, The Times We Had, 66; St. Johns, The Honeycomb, 189; "Ince's Death Natural"; Pizzitola, Hearst over Hollywood, 232.
46. St. Johns, The Honeycomb, 216.
47. Contemporary depictions of the Oneida story have kept the rumor alive. For recent retellings, see Patricia Hearst and Cornelia Frances Biddle, Murder at San Simeon (New York: Scribner's, 1996); Collins, "Idol Gossips"; and The Cat's Meow, a film by director Peter Bogdanovich released in 2001.
SIX. ON THE WAY TO HOLLYWOOD
i. Gene Fowler, Skyline (New York: Viking, 1961), 64-