The First Lady of Hollywood: A Biography of Louella Parsons
Starred Review. Historian Barbas's thoroughly researched and footnoted biography of the powerful gossip columnist who virtually invented celebrity journalism asks to be taken seriously as a chronicle of American history at a pivotal time—but it is also a fast and fascinating read. A smalltown girl from Dixon, Ill., Parsons married and separated early; at 29, she set off for Chicago as a single mother where she found a job as "scenario editor" to a small movie company in 1911, sorting through the hundreds of fan-written "screenplays" that arrived daily; the lucky few were turned into 15- or 20— minute silents at $25 a pop to the writer. She began to write about the movies for theChicago Tribune, and eventually parlayed her friendship with Marian Davies, the actress who was mistress to William Randolph Hearst, into a column for the Hearst papers. The rest is history—riveting history, covering the rise of the talkies; the invention of the studio system, the star system and "Hollywood"; and the blatant lies, coverups, favoritism and blackmail. Parsons's famous feud with rival Hedda Hopper is here, along with her role in damaging the Hollywood careers of Orson Welles, Mae West, Charlie Chaplin and Ingrid Bergman. Of its kind, this is a terrific book about an unusual life, and the author has done future Hollywood historians a great service by documenting it so carefully, incidentally exposing all the falsehoods Parsons related in her own 1945 autobiography,The Gay Illiterate. Photos.(Oct.)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.