The First Lady of Hollywood

by Samantha Barbas

  56. Ronald Brownstein, The Power and the Glitter: The Hollywood-Washington Connection (New York: Pantheon, 1990), 74, 75, 89-

  57. Larry Ceplair and Steven Englund, Inquisition in Hollywood.- Politics in the Film Community, 1930-1960 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), 211-

  58. Maland, Chaplin andAmerican Culture, 186-90.

  59. Ibid., 209.

  6o. To Hopper from unknown, Feb. 12,, 1944; from Esther Klooster, Feb. 10, 1944, Chaplin File, Hedda Hopper Collection, AMPAS.

  61. Maland, Chaplin and American Culture, 2o9; Florabel Muir, Headline Happy (New York: Holt, 1950), chap. 8.

  62. Jane Scovell, Oona: Living in the Shadows (New York: Warner Books, 1998), 117.

  63. Charles Chaplin, My Autobiography (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1964), 415•

  64. "Charlie Chaplin Will Wed Today," LAE, June 16, 1943, LOP Scrapbook #30, AMPAS.

  65. "Hollywood Inside," DV, June 17, 1943, 2-

  66. GI, book jacket.

  67. Ibid., 1-3,10.

  68. Ibid., 17-19.

  69. Ibid., 61.

  70. Ibid., 79, 144-

  71. Ibid., 145-47.

  72- Ibid., 2, 124, 127-

  73• Ibid.,185.

  74. DOS to LOP, Nov. 29, 1943, Administrative Studio Files, Selznick Collection.

  75. "Rambling Reporter," HR, Dec. i,1943, 2.

  76. Variety, Dec. 9, 1943, LOP Scrapbook #30, AMPAS.

  77. "Rambling Reporter," HR, Dec. 10, 1943, 2.

  78. "Hollywood's Back Fence," Time, Jan. 24, 1944, 54-

  79. Frank Nugent, "Hard Boiled Alice in Wonderland," New York Times, Jan. 9, 1944, sec. 7, p. 6, col. 3.

  8o. Manny Farber, "Mrs. Parsons, etc." New Republic, Jan. io, 1944, 53-

  81. David Platt, "Film Front," Daily Worker, Apr. 17, 1944, Louella Parsons File, U.S. Department of justice.

  82. David Nasaw, The Chief The Life of William Randolph Hearst (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000), 425-

  83. "Rambling Reporter," HR, Feb. 3, 1944, 2-

  84. Ibid.

  85. "Hollywood Inside," DV, Feb. 9, 1944, 2-

  86. "Hollywood Inside," DV, Feb. 7, 1944, 2.

  87. DV, May 3, 1944, LOP Scrapbook #32, AMPAS.

  88. Hedda Hopper, From under My Hat (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1952), 243-

  89. LAE, June 26, 194-4.

  90. Clipping, 1944, LOP Scrapbook #32, AMPAS.

  91. Brownstein, The Power and the Glitter, 91.

  92. "Rambling Reporter," HR, Feb. 20, 1945, 2-

  93. Hopper, The Whole Truth, 229.

  94. "Rambling Reporter," HR, Jan. 17, 1946, 2.

  95. Louella Parsons show radio script, July 13, 1947, Louella Parsons Collection, Cinema Television Library, University of Southern California.

  96. "Rambling Reporter," HR, June 5, 1945, 2.

  97. "Rambling Reporter," HR, Jan. 3, 1946, 2.

  98. "Colbert Comedy Hews to Sure Fire Line," Los Angeles Times, June 14, 1946, A2.

  99. LOP to Whiting, March 28, 1946, Louella Parsons Collection, Cinema Television Library, University of Southern California.

  100. George Eells, Hedda and Louella (New York: Putnam, 1972), 257.

  ioi. LAE, May 15, 1946.

  102. "Just for Variety," DV, June 11, 1946, 6.

  103. LOP to HH, Aug. 6, 1946, Louella Parsons File, Hedda Hopper Collection, AMPAS.

  104. Nasaw, The Chief 579-80; Wagner, Red Ink, White Lies, 194.

  105. Bebe Daniels and Ben Lyon, Life with the Lyons (London: Odhams, 1953), 177-78.

  ,o6. "Just for Variety," DV, July 11, 1946, 4.

  107. "Louella Returns," DV, Sept. 3, 1946, 8.

  io8. Clipping, n.d., LOP Scrapbook #37, AMPAS.

  109. Clipping from Billboard, Apr. 3, 1948, LOP Scrapbook #31, AMPAS.

  iio. "LOP footprints at Grauman's," LAE, Oct. 5, 1946, LOP Scrapbook #37, AMPAS; Stacey Endres and Robert Cushman, Hollywood at Your Feet: The Story of the World Famous Chinese Theater (Los Angeles: Pomegranate Press, 1992), 201.

  FOURTEEN. WAR AND PEACE

  i. "Cosmopolitan Citations," Cosmopolitan, May 1946, Box 3, Louella Parsons Collection, Cinema Television Library, University of Southern California (hereafter LOP collection, USC).

  2. Lynn Spigel, Make Room for TV Television and the Family Ideal in the Postwar Period (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 32-

  3. Thomas Schatz, Boom and Bust: American Cinema in the 1940s (New York: Scribner's, 1997), 289-91.

  4. "An Industry Gets over the Jitters," Newsweek, May 1o, 1948, 58-

  S. "Independents Day," Time, May 17, 1948, 9i-92; Schatz, Boom and Bust, 329.

  6. Ronald Davis, The Glamour Factory: Inside Hollywood's Big Studio System (Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1993), 358; Ernest Borneman, "United States versus Hollywood: The Case Study of an Antitrust Suit," in The American Film Industry, ed. Tino Balio (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), 449-62.

  7. Charles Higham, Hollywood at Sunset (New York: Saturday Review Press, 1972),73-

  8. See Elaine Tyler May, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era (New York: Basic Books, 1988).

  9. Cited in Cynthia Baron, "As Red as a Burlesque Queen's Garters: Cold War Politics and the Actors' Lab in Hollywood," in Headline Hollywood, ed. Adrienne McLean and David Cook (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, zoo1),144.

  1o. Larry Ceplair and Steven Englund, Inquisition in Hollywood: Politics in the Film Community, 1930-1960 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), 254. On the HUAC hearings in Hollywood, also see Eric Bentley, Are You Now or Have You Ever Been: The Investigation of Show Business by the Un-American Activities Committee, 1,947-1,958 (New York: Harper and Row, 1972); Patrick McGilligan and Paul Buhle, Tender Comrades: A Backstory of the Hollywood Blacklist (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997); Stephen Vaughn, "Political Censorship during the Cold War: The Hollywood Ten," in Movie Censorship and American Culture, ed. Francis Couvares (Washington, DC: Smithsonian, 1996).

  it. "Johnson Admits Reds in Hwood but Scoffs at Their Influence," Variety (hereafter V), Apr. 16,

  1z. Otto Friedrichs, City ofNets: A Portrait of Hollywood in the z94os (New York: Harper and Row, 1986), 303-

  13. "Current Film Productions of Interest," 1949, Louella Parsons File, U.S. Department of justice (hereafter LOP File, DOJ).

  14. Charles Maland, Chaplin and American Culture (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989), 288; See Irvin Molotsky, "The Chaplin Files: Can It Happen Again?" New York Times (hereafter NYT), Jan. 22, 1986, Azo.

  15. Hoover to Tolson, Oct. z6,1934, LOP File, DOJ Files.

  16. Hoover to William Stanley, Oct. 30, 1934, LOP File, DOJ Files.

  17. Hanson to Hoover, Dec. 9, 1936, LOP File, DOJ Files.

  18. LOP to Hoover, Jan. 4, 1940, LOP File, DOJ Files.

  19. Los Angeles Examiner (hereafter LAE), Feb. 5,1957.

  20. LAE, May 1, 1947.

  21. LAE, Apr. 1o, 1947, I, 13-

  22. Radio script, Louella Parsons Show, August 31, 1947, LOP collection, USC.

  23. Maland, Chaplin andAmerican Culture, 254.

  24. LAE, Sept. 28, 1947.

  25. Hedda Hopper, "Looking at Hollywood," Los Angeles Times (hereafter LAT), Aug. 14, 1947, 3-

  26. Hopper to Hoover, Apr. 7, 1949, Hedda Hopper file, U.S. Department ofJus- tice.

  27. JEH to HH, Aug. 25, 1947, Hedda Hopper file, U.S. Department of justice.

  28. On the CFA, see Schatz, Boom and Bust, 311.

  29. 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), 221. On October 27, 1947, Louella praised the producers for eliminating "the pink tinge" that had tainted a Broadway musical, Call Me Mister, in the upcoming film version. She was referring to a skit about the "Red Ball Express," a segregated trucking company that had delivered supplies to the front line in the war. See Jim Tuck,
McCarthyism and New York's Hearst Press: A Study ofRoles in the Witch Hunt (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1995), 32-

  30. "Soviet Artists Blast Hollywood Red Drive," n.d., LOP Scrapbook #37, Louella Parsons Collection, Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills, California (hereafter AMPAS).

  31. "Russians Suggest Hollywood Rebel," NYT, Dec. 9,1947, 9.

  32. "LOP Happy about Red Attack," n.d., LOP Scrapbook #37, AMPAS.

  33. Victor Navasky, Naming Names (New York: Viking, 1980), 78-85.

  34. Schatz, Boom and Bust, 311.

  35. Steven Ross, "When Stars Speak Out: Movie Stars, Politics, and the Power of Audience Reception," manuscript, 18.

  36. "Pink Slips," Time, Dec. 8, 1947, 28.

  37. Hedda Hopper, "Looking at Hollywood," LAT, Oct. 23, 1947, sec. z, p. 9.

  38. Hedda Hopper, "Looking at Hollywood," LAT, Nov. 7, 1947, sec. 1, p. 1o.

  39. Jeffrey Meyers, Bogart: A Life in Hollywood (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997), 210.

  40. Modern Screen, 1947, Folder 4, LOP collection, USC.

  41. Friedrichs, City ofNets, 327.

  42. LAE, Nov. 20, 1947.

  43. "Film Industry's Policy Defined," V, Nov. z6, 1947, 9.

  44. LAE, Feb. 8, 1947-

  45. Navasky, Naming Names, 154.

  46. Lindsay Chaney and Michael Cieply, The Hearsts: Family and Empire-the Later Years (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981), 13 5-36.

  47. LAE, Nov. 14, 1946.

  48. J. Randy Taraborelli, Sinatra: Behind the Legend (Secaucus, NJ: Carroll Publishing Group, 1997), 8z.

  49. "Rambling Reporter," Hollywood Reporter (hereafter HR), Jan. 29, 1947, 2.

  5o. "Good News," Modern Screen, May 1947, Box 2, Folder 3, LOP collection, USC.

  51. "Just for Variety," DV, Mar. 23, 1948, 4-

  52. "Rambling Reporter," HR, Sept. 17, 1948, 2.

  53. Isabella Taves, "Louella Parsons," Look, Oct. 10, 195o, 6o-6i.

  54. "Rambling Reporter," HR, Apr. 4, 1947, 2.

  55. "Lop at Bowie to Award Cup," clipping, Apr. 10, 1947, LOP Scrapbook #37, AMPAS.

  56. "Rambling Reporter," HR, Apr. 24, 1947, 2-

  57. "The Gossipist," Time, July z8, 1947, 6o.

  58. Hedda Hopper, "Looking at Hollywood," LAT, Aug. 6, 1947, sec. 2, p. 8.

  59. Hedda Hopper, "Looking at Hollywood," LAT, Aug. 2, 1947, sec. 2, p. 5-

  6o. "Telling Off Lolly," Newsweek, June 9, 1947, 64-

  61. Dwight Whitney, Hollywood correspondent for Time, had gathered the material for the story, and Louella snubbed him at parties for years. When Whitney left Time and was temporarily unemployed, Louella attacked him in her column, going as far as to suggest that his children were suffering from malnutrition. See Ezra Goodman, The Fifty-Year Decline and Fall of Hollywood (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1961), 24-

  62. "Hollywood Inside," DV, Mar. 2, 1948, 2-

  63. Ingrid Bergman, My Story (New York: Delacorte Press, 1980), 139-

  64. Program, Louella O. Parsons Testimonial Dinner, Box 3:27, John Stahl Collection, University of Southern California.

  65. "Rambling Reporter," HR, Mar. 2, 1948, 2-

  66. Louella's acceptance speech, LOP Scrapbook #42, AMPAS.

  67. Clipping, n.d., LOP Scrapbook #42, AMPAS.

  68. Mock "LA Examiner," n.d., LOP Scrapbook #42, AMPAS.

  69. WRH to LOP, n.d., LOP Scrapbook #42, AMPAS.

  70. "We Love You Louella," Time, Mar. 15, 1948, 98-99.

  71. Acceptance speech, LOP Scrapbook #42, AMPAS.

  72. Alex Tiers to George Eells, George Eells Collection, University of Southern California.

  73. "We Love You Louella," 98.

  74. LAE, Mar. 6,1948.

  75. "Hollywood Inside," DV, Sept. 27, 1946, 2.

  76. "Hollywood Inside," DV, Apr. 23, 1941, 2-

  77. LAE, June 4, 1941-

  78. "Parsons Jr.," Hollywood Studio Magazine, Oct. 1982, Harriet Parsons Clipping File, AMPAS.

  79. Hedda Hopper, "Looking at Hollywood," LAT, Mar. 12, 1948, sec. 1, p. 16.

  8o. William J. Mann, Behind the Screen: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood, 1910-1969 (New York: Viking, zoos), 194-95-

  81. "Rambling Reporter," HR, Nov. 6, 1944, 2.

  82- DOS to Colby, Apr. 23, 1945, Administrative Studio Files, 1938-1943, Selznick Collection, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University ofTexas, Austin.

  83. LAE, May 2, 1945-

  84. LAE, Mar. 25, 1945-

  85. LAE, Apr. 7, 1945, 1, 9•

  86. "Cosmopolitan Citations," Cosmopolitan, Apr. 1948, Box 3, LOP collection, USC.

  87. Hedda Hopper, "Looking at Hollywood," LAT, Mar. 12, 1948, sec. ,, p. 16.

  88. Hedda Hopper, From under My Hat (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1952), 75-

  89. Harriet Parsons to Hedda Hopper, Mar. 15, 1948, Harriet Parsons Files, Hedda Hopper Collection, AMPAS.

  9o. Ginger Rogers to HH, Mar. 12, 1948, Harriet Parsons Files, Hedda Hopper Collection, AMPAS.

  91. Wynn Roccamora to HH, Mar. 12, 1948, Harriet Parsons Files, Hedda Hopper Collection, AMPAS.

  92. In 1941, Pic magazine had falsely claimed that "one day Hedda suggested to Louella that they end the whole affair. The idea was to kiss and make up publicly at a charity ball. Louella liked the idea, but it never materialized." According to Pic, Louella had allegedly "begged out at the last minute saying that her husband, Dr. Martin, didn't feel her health would permit such an experience.... Hollywood rumors are that [she] withdrew because she neither trusted Hedda's wit nor the apparent honesty of the plan." "Parsons vs. Hopper," Pic, May 13, 1941, Louella Parsons Clipping File, AMPAS.

  93. Hopper, From under My Hat, 244-45.

  94. HR, Mar. 17, 1948.

  95. Dickson Hartwell, "End of a Beautiful Feud," Collier's, June 5, 1948, 22.

  96. Irving Hoffman, "Tales of Hoffman," HR, Mar. 5, 1948-

  97. "Hedda Hopper's Hollywood," LAT, May 15,1948•

  98. Hartwell, "End of a Beautiful Feud," 22.

  99. Molly Merrick, interview by George Eells, n.d., George Eells Collection, Arizona State University.

  ioo. Grace Mullen to Hedda Hopper, Sept. 24, 1948, Louella Parsons File, Hedda Hopper Collection, AMPAS.

  101. Hartwell, "End of a Beautiful Feud," 22.

  102. Gloria Swanson, "Gloria's Glories," May 27, 1948, LOP Scrapbook #43, AMPAS.

  103. Kathleen Cairns, Front Page Women Journalists (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003), xi, xii, 4.

  104. Dorothy Kilgallen, "Voice of Broadway," New York Journal American, n.d., LOP Scrapbook #43, AMPAS.

  105. Hollywood Shopping News, July 19, 1948, LOP Scrapbook #43, AMPAS.

  io6. LAE, June 22, 1948, I, 15.

  107. LAE, Oct. 9, 1958-

  1o8. New York American, July 29, 1948, LOP Scrapbook #43, AMPAS.

  io9. "Rambling Reporter," HR, Sept. 29, 1948, 2.

  110. Neal Gabler, Winchell: Gossip, Power, and the Culture of Celebrity (New York: Knopf, 1994), 376.

  111. "Rambling Reporter," HR, Nov. 17, 1948, 2.

  112. "Rambling Reporter," HR, Nov 10,

  113. "Hollywood Inside," DV, Nov. 18, 1948-

  114. AdvertisingAge, Jan. 10, 1949, LOP Scrapbook #44, AMPAS; "Hollywood Inside," DV, Mar. 18, 1949-

  115. "Rambling Reporter," HR, June 16, 1948, 2-

  116. George Dixon, "Dixon Says," Nov. 9, 1948, LOP Scrapbook #44, AMPAS.

  117. Bosley Crowther, Hollywood Rajah: The Life and Times of Louis B. Mayer (New York: Holt, 1960), 271.

  118. "Rambling Reporter," HR, Dec. 10, 1948, 2.

  119. "Rambling Reporter," HR, Mar. 16, 1949, 2.

  FIFTEEN. SCANDAL

  i. Elaine Tyler May, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era (New York: Basic Books, 1988), 69, 116.

  2. Photoplay, 1947, Box 2, Folder 3, Louella Parsons Collection, Cinema Television Library, University of Southern California.

  3. Louella Parsons, Tell It to Louella (New York: Put
nam, 1961), (hereafter TL), 73-74-

  4. Ibid., 74-

  5. Ibid., 77.

  6. See Barbara Learning, If This Was Happiness: A Biography of Rita Hayworth (New York: Viking, 1989).

  7. TL,8z.

  8. TL, 84.

  9. "Rambling Reporter," HR, May 9, 1949, 2-

  io. TL, 85.

  ii. TL, 87.

  i2. "Rambling Reporter," HR, June 6, 1949, 2-

  13- "Rambling Reporter," HR, June 8, 1949, 2-

  14. A. J. Liebling, "The Wayward Press," New Yorker, June 11, 1949, 87-93•

  15- Ibid.

  16. "Clubwoman Asks Boycott of Rita's Films," Los Angeles Times (hereafter LAT), Friday, Jan. 14, 1949, 22.

  17. Memo from David O. Selznick, ed. Rudy Behlmer, 144-45, cited in Kathy Feeley, "Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper's Hollywood: The Rise of the Celebrity Gossip Industry in Twentieth-Century America, 1910-1950" (Ph.D. disc., City University of New York, 2003), 244-

  18. James Damico, "Ingrid from Lorraine to Stromboli: Analyzing the Public's Perception of a Film Star," in Star Texts: Image and Performance in Film and Television, ed. Jeremy Butler (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1991), 25o; also see Adrienne McLean, "The Cinderella Princess and the Instrument of Evil: Revisiting Two Postwar Hollywood Star Scandals," in Headline Hollywood, ed. Adrienne McLean and David Cook (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, zoor), 163-89-

  19. Los Angeles Examiner (hereafter LAE), Nov. 3, 1946.

  20. LAE, Feb. 24, 1948.

  21. John Kobal, People Will Talk (New York: Knopf, 1985), 471.

  22. LAE, Jan. 23, 1947, II, 5•

  23. Laurence Learner, As Time Goes By: The Life of Ingrid Bergman (New York: HarperCollins, 1986), 150-

  24- Joseph Steele, Ingrid Bergman, an Intimate Portrait (New York: McKay, 1959), 161.

  25. LAE, Feb. 26, 1949, I, 11.

  26. Feeley, "Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper's Hollywood," 252-

  27. Learning, If This Was Happiness, 19o.

  28. LAE, May 15, 1949, I, 13-

  29. LAE, May 5, 1949, II, 5.

  30. Steele, Ingrid Bergman, 259.

  31. LAE, July 31, 1949-

  32. TL, 58.

  33. Ibid.

  34• Sheilah Graham, The Rest of the Story (New York: Coward McCann, 1964), 143-

  35. Radie Harris, Radie's World (New York: Putnam, 1975), 166-67.

  36. "Ingrid Bergman Expecting Baby," LAE, Dec. 12, 1949, I.

  37. Media scholars James Lull and Stephen Hinerman define the modern media scandal as an event that occurs when "the intentional or reckless personal actions of specific persons ... disgrace or offend the idealized, dominant morality of a social community." The actions or events must be "widely circulated by mass media, effectively narrativized into a story, and inspire widespread interest and discussion." The Bergman story and its subsequent fallout clearly fit this description. See James Lull and Stephen Hinerman, eds., Media Scandals: Morality and Desire in Popular Culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997).