2. Ibid., 95, 98-
3. Adela Rogers St. Johns, The Honeycomb (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1969), 124.
4- W. A. Swanberg, Citizen Hearst (New York: Scribner's, 1961), 84.
S. Ishbel Ross, Ladies ofthe Press (New York: Harper, 1936), 36.
6. "The Screen and Its Players," Apr. 16, 1925, LOP Scrapbook #12, Louella Parsons Collection, Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills, California (hereafter AMPAS).
7. Charles Ponce de Leon, Self-Exposure: Human Interest Journalism and the Emergency of Celebrity in America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 46-47. It was the tabloids, in particular, that took the story-journalism format to new and often ethically dubious heights. The Daily News, established in 1919, had by 1924 gained a readership of 8oo,ooo, the nation's largest at the time. To meet the competition, Hearst started the Daily Mirror in 1924-"ninety percent entertainment and ten percent information" was the formula Hearst set out for the new publication-and by 1926, the Mirror had a circulation of 370,000. George Douglas, The Golden Age of the Newspaper (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999), 230.
8. Leo Lowenthal, "The Triumph of Mass Idols," in Literature, Popular Culture, and Society (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1961), 109-40.
9. Warren I. Susman, "Personality and the Making of Twentieth Century Culture," in Susman, Culture as History: The Transformation ofAmerican Society in the Twentieth Century (New York: Pantheon, 1984), 271-85; William Leach, Land ofDe- sire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise ofa New American Culture (New York: Pantheon, 1993). Also see Lary May, Screening Out the Past: The Birth ofMass Culture and the Motion Picture Industry (New York: Oxford, 1980); Richard Schickel, Intimate Strangers (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1985).
io. See Samantha Barbas, Movie Crazy: Fans, Stars, and the Cult of Celebrity (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, zoos), chap. 5.
ii. New York Times (hereafter NYT), Sept. zo, 1925, LOP Scrapbook #12, AMPAS.
12. Gaylyn Studlar, "The Perils of Pleasure? Fan Magazine Discourse as Women's Commodified Culture in the 1920s," Wide Angle 13, no. I (Jan. 1991): 9.
13. Ibid., 7.
14. Ibid.
15. "The Screen and Its Players," July 26, 1925, LOP Scrapbook #12, AMPAS.
16. "The Screen and Its Players," Sept. 27, 1925, LOP Scrapbook #12, AMPAS.
17. "The Screen and Its Players," Sept. 10, 1925, LOP Scrapbook #12, AMPAS.
18. "The Screen and Its Players," July 9, 1925, LOP Scrapbook #12, AMPAS.
19. San Francisco Examiner, Sept. 14. 1924, LOP Scrapbook #12, AMPAS.
20. Variety, June 4, 1924, LOP Scrapbook #io, AMPAS.
21. Jane Kesner Ardmore, The Self-Enchanted (New York: McGraw Hill, 1959), 163-64-
22. Louella Parsons, Tell It to Louella (New York: Putnam, 1961), 44-
23. New York Mirror, May 15, 1925, LOP Scrapbook #,o, AMPAS.
24. San Francisco Examiner, May 24, 1925, LOP Scrapbook #10, AMPAS.
25. Ibid.
2,6. Los Angeles Herald, May 20, June 10, June 21, 1925, LOP Scrapbook #1o, AMPAS.
27. Los Angeles Examiner, July 11, 1925, LOP Scrapbook #,o, AMPAS.
28. Charles Chaplin, MyAutobiography (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1964), 312.
29. Fred Lawrence Guiles, Marion Davies (New York: Bantam, 1973), 172.
30. Los Angeles Herald, June 27, 1925, LOP Scrapbook #10, AMPAS; Louis Pizzi- tola, Hearst over Hollywood (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 231-
31. Telegram from Gene Fowler to LOP, June 30, 1925, LOP Scrapbook #11, AMPAS.
32- H. Allen Smith, The Life and Legend of Gene Fowler (New York: Morrow, 1977), 188-89.
33. New York Moving Picture World, n.d.; Washington Star, Aug. 23, 1924; Bridgeport Times, Apr. 6, 1925; Variety, Mar. 11, 1925, LOP #10; New York American, Mar. 21, 1925, LOP Scrapbook #9, AMPAS.
34. Clipping, Mar. 21, 1925, LOP Scrapbook #9, AMPAS.
35. Bridgeport (CT) Times, Apr. 6, 1925, LOP Scrapbook #io, AMPAS.
36. George Eells, Hedda and Louella (New York: Putnam, 1972), 117.
37. Los Angeles Examiner, Mar. 8, 1951, II, 7.
38. Baird Leonard, "Lines for a New Years Card," Life, Jan. 2, 1925, LOP Scrapbook #1o, AMPAS.
39. Louella Parsons, The Gay Illiterate (hereafter GI) (New York: Doubleday Doran, 1944), 78.
40. A note from Davies, addressed to Louella in the Roosevelt Hospital, referred cryptically to "that other little matter you are having done in the hospital." "I think I'll try it myself," Davies wrote. Letter from Marion Davies to Louella, 1924, courtesy of Nick Langdon of the Marion Davies Fan Club.
41. GI, 78.
42. Ibid.
43. Swanberg, Citizen Hearst, 353; Marion Davies, The Times We Had (New York: Bobbs Merrill, 1975),118.
44. Swanberg, Citizen Hearst, 418.
45. Parsons, Tell It to Louella, 93.
46. New York Star, Mar. 26, 1926; New York Graphic, Feb. 13, 1926, LOP #10, AMPAS.
47. GI, 8o.
48. History ofSan Bernardino and Riverside County (Chicago: Western Historical Association, 1922), 224-26.
49. Population statistics courtesy of Carolina Barrera, city clerk of Colton, CA, correspondence with author, Sept. 30, 2002-
50. Hollywood Premiere, script, Mar. 28, 1948, Louella Parsons Collection, USC.
51. Detroit Times, Mar. I, 1926; Mar. 7, 1926; Los Angeles Examiner, Feb. 28, 1926, LOP Scrapbook #15, AMPAS.
52. In 1926, Louella was appointed motion picture editor for the Universal Service, the Hearst wire service for the morning papers. But in 1937, when Universal merged with the International News Service, the Hearst evening news service, Louella became motion picture editor of the International News Service.
53. New York American, Feb. 24, 1926, LOP Scrapbook #10, AMPAS.
54. GI, 84.
55. Ibid.
56. On the Universal Syndicate, see Moses Koenisgberg, King News: An Autobiography (Philadelphia: F. S. Stokes, 1941).
57. "Louella Parsons Gets New Job on Los Angeles Paper," Denver Post, Apr. 4, 1926, LOP Scrapbook #13, AMPAS.
58. GI, 84.
59. "P. J. Brady Chosen Labor Bank Head," NYT, May 17, 1923, 2; GI, 105-
6o. Clippings, n.d.; "Marion Feted during Eastern Trip," n.d.; "Promotion Value of Writers' Work," Apr. 15, 1926, all in LOP Scrapbook #13, AMPAS.
SEVEN. HOLLYWOOD
i. Louella Parsons, The Gay Illiterate (hereafter GI) (New York: Doubleday Doran, 1944), 24-
2. Kevin Starr, Material Dreams: Southern California through the 19206 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 98.
3. Starr, Material Dreams, ioo.
4. Bruce Torrence, Hollywood: The First Hundred Years (New York: New York Zoetrope, 1982), 76.
5. Ibid., 87.
6. Ibid., ,o8.
7. Los Angeles Examiner (hereafter LAE), Aug. 18, 1926; LOP, Scrapbook # 14, Louella Parsons Collection, Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills, California (hereafter AMPAS).
8. On the Arbuckle scandal and its aftermath, see Sam Stoloff, "Fatty Arbuckle and the Black Sox," in Headline Hollywood, ed. Adrienne McLean and David Cook (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, zoo,); Samantha Barbas, "The Political Spectator," Film History ii, no. 2 (,999): 217-28; Stuart Oderman, Roscoe "Fatty"Arbuckle (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1994).
9. Kathy Feeley, "Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper's Hollywood: The Rise of the Celebrity Gossip Industry in Twentieth-Century America, 1910-1950" (Ph.D. diss., City University of New York, 2003), 54•
,o. In 1925, the Examiner's circulation was 167,935, behind the Evening Herald and ahead of the Times. Rob Wagner, Red Ink, White Lies: The Rise and Fall ofLos Angeles Newspapers, 1920-1962 (Upland, CA: Dragonflyer Press, 2000), introduction. ii. Ibid.
1z. "Hollywood Chatter," Variety, Oct. 9, 1929.
13. Jerry Hoffman, interview by George Eells, n.d., George Eells Collection, Arizona State University
14. Wagner, Red Ink, White
Lies, chap. i.
15. "Heavy Guns of Film World Desert NY for LA," LAE, Apr. ,z, 1926, ii.
16. Pola Negri, Memoirs ofa Star (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1970), 355•
17. "LOP Riles LA Legit Managers," clipping, LOP Scrapbook #14, AMPAS.
i8. Negri, Memoirs ofa Star, 355.
19. Ronald Davis, The Glamour Factory: Inside Hollywood's Big Studio System (Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1993), 5, 138-
20. Robert Sklar, Movie-Made America: A Cultural History of American Movies (New York: Vintage, 1994), 149; Richard Maltby, Hollywood Cinema: An Introduction (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1990), 63, 65-66.
2,1. Cathy Klaprat, "The Star as Market Strategy: Bette Davis in Another Light," in The American Film Industry, ed. Tino Balio (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), 351-76.
22. Davis, The Glamour Factory, 138-39.
23. "Louella Parsons Dead at 9i," Variety, Dec. 13, 1972, Louella Parsons Clipping File, AMPAS.
24. Clipping, Sept. 23, 1927, LOP Scrapbook #14, AMPAS.
25. Sally Wright Cobb, The Brown Derby Restaurant: A Hollywood Legend (New York: Rizzoli, 1996), n.p.
26. O. O. McIntyre, "New York Day by Day," n.d., LOP Scrapbook #13, AMPAS.
27. Clipping, Sept. 23, 1927, LOP Scrapbook #14, AMPAS.
28. Larry Swindell, Screwball: The Life of Carole Lombard (New York: Morrow, 1975), 33-
29. Velva Darling, "Is Feature Writing Hard Work?" n.d., LOP Scrapbook #13, AMPAS.
30. Philip Schuyler, "Where Shadow Gods Are Manufactured," Editor and Publisher, Sept. io. 1927, LOP Scrapbook #14, AMPAS. According to media historian Kathy Feeley, Parsons's rise to power was a result of the standardization and consolidation of news content in the U.S. press during this period. The total number of newspapers in the nation sharply dropped and syndicates and wire services rose. "Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper's Hollywood," 6z.
31. Variety, Nov. 24, 1926, LOP Scrapbook #14, AMPAS.
32. "Miss Parsons to Cover Fight at Quaker City," LOP Scrapbook #14, AMPAS; Dixon Evening Telegraph, Aug. 3, 1926, LOP Scrapbook #14, AMPAS.
33. LAE, Sept. 30, 1927.
34. LAE, Nov. 14, 1926.
35. Telegram from D. W. Griffith to LOP, Oct. 25, 1926, D. W Grifth Papers (Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, 1982).
36. Clipping, June 3, 1927, LOP Scrapbook #14, AMPAS.
37. Donald Crafton, The Talkies: American Cinema's Transition to Sound (New York: Scribner's, 1997), 489-
38. "Hearst Aid to Independents in Exhibiting Field Providing Practical Plan Is Worked Out," Variety, July 27, 1929, 347.
39. GI, 117.
40. LAE, Apr. 22, 1928.
41. LAE, May 22, 1927.
42. Samuel Marx, Mayer and Thalberg: The Make-Believe Saints (New York: Random House, 1975), 105-
43. Hollywood, the End ofan Era (London: Thames Video, 1980).
44. David Nasaw, The Chief The Life of William Randolph Hearst (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, zooo), 409-
45. Crafton, The Talkies, 499.
46. Leatrice Joy Fountain, Dark Star (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1985), chap. ii.
47. Negri, Memoirs ofa Star, 3 55•
48. Bebe Daniels and Ben Lyon, Life with the Lyons (London: Odhams, 1953), 143-
49. "Film Producing Not Now Bounded," Variety, Aug. z8, 1929, 2.
50. "Divorce Is Granted Mrs. Luella Parsons," Dixon Evening Telegraph, June 25, 1928, I.
51. GI, 111.
52. "Dr. H. W. Martin Claimed by Death," LAE, June 25, 1951, Louella Parsons Clipping File, Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences (hereafter AMPAS).
53. GI, 103-
54. GI, uz.
55. Biography of Harriet Parsons, Harriet Parsons Clipping File, AMPAS; "Junior Stars at Wellesley," Mar. 24, 1927, LOP Scrapbook #13, AMPAS.
56. GI, 112.
57. "30,000 in Mob Scene Outdo Battle Films," LAE, June 27, 1928, 3.
58. GI, 115-
59- Ibid.
6o. GI, 86.
61. Jim Heimann, Out with the Stars: Hollywood Nightlife in the Studio Era (New York: Abbeville Press, 1985), 35-
62. GI, 87.
63. LAE, Dec. 8, 1926.
64. Silas Bent, Ballyhoo: The Voice of the Press (New York: Boni, 1927), 5.
65. Editor and Publisher, Aug. 14, 1926, LOP Scrapbook #1z, AMPAS.
66. Minutes, 4/29/36, Hollywood Women's Press Club Collection, AMPAS (hereafter HWPCC).
67. Dorothy Manners oral history, HWPCC.
68. This and the next quote come from Dorothy Manners's Founders Day luncheon speech, 1967, HWPCC.
69. Hollywood Women's Press Club History, n.d., HWPCC.
70. "Miss Parsons Becomes Bride of Dr. Martin," LAE, Jan. 7,193o, LOP Scrapbook #16, AMPAS.
71. "Louella Parsons Files Bridal Notice," LAE, Dec. 20, 1929, LOP Scrapbook #13, AMPAS.
72. GI, 116.
EIGHT. FEUDS
i. Alan Brinkley, The Unfinished Nation, vol. 2 (New York: McGraw Hill, 1997), 680-85-
2. Donald Crafton, The Talkies: American Cinema's Transition to Sound (New York: Scribner's, 1997), 463-
3- WRH to Hays, Feb. 19, 1929, in The Will Hays Papers, ed. Douglas Gomery (Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, 1988), microfilm.
4. WRH to LOP, Mar. 24, 1931, Carton 12, William Randolph Hearst Collection, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (hereafter Hearst Collection, UCB).
5. Los Angeles Examiner (hereafter LAE), Sept. 24, 1929, LOP Scrapbook #16, Louella Parsons Collection, Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills, California (hereafter AMPAS).
6. On the implementation of-and resistance to-the Production Code in 1930-31, see Gregory Black, Hollywood Censored (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); Leonard Leff and Jerold Simmons, The Dame in the Kimono: Hollywood Censorship and the Production Code (New York: Doubleday, 1990); Francis Couvares, ed., Movie Censorship and American Culture (Washington, DC: Smithsonian, 1996); Frank Walsh, Sin and Censorship: The Catholic Church and the Motion Picture Industry (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996).
7. Crafton, The Talkies, 481.
8. Letter from WRH to Hearst editors, n.d., LOP Scrapbook #13, AMPAS.
9. LOP to Lloyd Thompson, Nov. 1, 1931, Carton 12, Hearst Collection, UCB.
1o. "Miss Parsons Inaugurates Radical Changes," Editor and Publisher, June 22, 1929, LOP Scrapbook #16, AMPAS.
ii. Atlanta Constitution, Apr. 14, 1929, LOP Scrapbook #16, AMPAS.
12. "Hollywood Chatter," Variety, Aug. 21, 1929.
13. WRH to LOP, n.d., LOP Scrapbook #16, AMPAS.
14. Louis Lurie, interview by George Eells, n.d., George Eells Collection, Arizona State University (hereafter Eells Collection, ASU).
15. "Hollywood's Back Fence," Time, Jan. 24, 1944, 56.
16. George Eells, Hedda and Louella (New York: Putnam, 1972), 150.
17. Ibid.
18. Larry Swindell, Screwball: The Life of Carole Lombard (New York: Morrow, 1975), 168-69.
19. Bob Thomas, telephone interview by author, Feb. 3, 2004-
20. Len Riblett, interview by George Eells, n.d., Eells Collection, ASU.
2,1. Louella Parsons, The Gay Illiterate (hereafter GI) (New York: Doubleday Doran, 1944), 121•
22. Isabella Taves, "Louella Parsons," Look, Oct. 10, 1950, 6o-6i.
23. Anita Loos, The Talmadge Girls (New York: Viking, 1978), 68-69.
24. Charles Champlin, "Private Lives of Hollywood's Powerful Columnists," 126, Louella Parsons Clipping File, AMPAS.
25. "Hollywood's Back Fence," 54.
26. Bebe Daniels and Ben Lyon, Life with the Lyons (London: Odhams, 1953), 179
27. Beaton cited in Victoria Kastner, Hearst Castle: Biography ofa Country House (New York: H. N. Abrams, 2000), 129.
28. Ibid., 21.
29. Ken Murray, The Golden Days ofSan Simeon (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1971), 20.
30. Ibid., 24-
> 31. Ferdinand Lundberg, Imperial Hearst (New York: Equinox, 1936), 453-
32. Hedda Hopper, From under My Hat (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1952),129.
33. David Nasaw, The Chief- The Life of William Randolph Hearst (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, zooo), 441.
34. Ilka Chase, Past Imperfect (Garden City, NY: Doubleday Doran, 1942), 116.
35• St. Johns quoted in Kastner, Hearst Castle, 130.
36. Stanley Heaton, "Gardening and Road Construction," Hearst San Simeon Oral History Project, Special Collections, California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo (hereafter HSSOHP), 8.
37. Ann Miller, "San Simeon during Its Time of Transition," HSSOHP, 21.
38. August Wahlberg, "Working for WR Hearst," HSSOHP, 88.
39. John Kobal, People Will Talk (New York: Knopf, 1985), 56.
40. Barry Paris, Louise Brooks (New York: Knopf, 1989), 238-
41. Adela Rogers St. Johns, The Honeycomb (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1969), 348-
42. LOP to WRH, Nov. 7, 1931, Carton 12, Hearst Collection, UCB.
43. "Peter Brady Funeral to Be Held Tomorrow," New York Times (hereafter NYT), Sept. 23, 1931; "Peter J. Brady Dies in Airplane Crash," NYT, Sept. zz, 1931, 1.
44. LOP to WRH, Sept. 24, 1931, Carton 12, Hearst Collection, UCB.
45. Tino Balio, Grand Design: Hollywood as a Modern Business Enterprise (New York: Scribner, 1993), 146.
46. Editor and Publisher, Aug. 14, 1926, LOP Scrapbook #12, AMPAS.
47. Louella "criticized" the stars cautiously. In Louella's column, stars made poor marriage choices and bad business deals, but they never had abortions, illegitimate pregnancies, or homosexual relationships. By limiting stars' transgressions to the morally safe if not trivial, Louella fulfilled readers' cravings for the seemingly intimate truth while drawing attention from actors' real, potentially more scandalous activities.
48. J. Herbie DiFonzo, Beneath the Fault Line: The Popular and Legal Culture of Divorce in Twentieth-Century America (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1997), 61.
49. LAE, Apr. 16, 1931-
50. Charles Ponce de Leon, Self-Exposure: Human Interest journalism and the Emergency of Celebrity in America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, zooz), 107-9-
51. Rosten cited in Richard Griffith, The Talkies (New York: Dover, 1971), 96.
52. LAE, Mar. 2, 1930.
53. LAE, May 1o, 1936.
The First Lady of Hollywood Page 48