page_title: Louella Parsons
section_title: "First Lady of Hollywood"
hierarchical_section_title: Louella Parsons / Career / "First Lady of Hollywood"
caption_attribution_description: English: Louella Parsons and June AllysonJune Allyson reveals a secret to Louella (1946)
context_page_description: Louella Parsons was an American movie columnist and a screenwriter. She was retained by William Randolph Hearst because she had championed Hearst's mistress Marion Davies and subsequently became an influential figure in Hollywood. At her peak, her columns were read by 20 million people in 700 newspapers worldwide.
  She remained the unchallenged “Queen of Hollywood gossip” until the arrival of the flamboyant Hedda Hopper, with whom she feuded for years.
context_section_description: Parsons saw herself as the social and moral arbiter of Hollywood and many feared her disfavor more than that of movie critics.
  Parsons had informants in studio corridors, hairdressers’ salons, and lawyers’ and doctors’ offices. Her husband was a urologist and Hollywood physician, and it was thought that he passed on information he learnt in his position as a studio doctor. She worked from her Beverly Hills home with a staff consisting of a secretary, her assistant reviewer (Dorothy Manners, who worked with Parsons for thirty years), a "leg" man who gathered news and a female reporter who covered café. She had three telephones in her office. She also had former silent stars on her payroll to help them financially.
  She considered the biggest scoop of her career to be the divorce of Douglas Fairbanks Sr. and Mary Pickford, then the most famous couple in Hollywood. Parsons had learnt of the split from Pickford herself, who had made the mistake of counting on the columnist's discretion. Parsons sat on the story for six weeks hoping that they would reconcile and concerned that the news might damage the film industry, but published once she heard that the Los Angeles Times had also got the story.
  When she had received a tip that Clark Gable was divorcing his second wife Ria, Parsons essentially held Mrs. Gable hostage at her home until she was sure that her story was speeding across the wire ahead of any other service.
  Her unofficial title ‘Queen of Hollywood’ was challenged in 1938 by newcomer Hedda Hopper, to whom she was initially friendly and helpful. However, they came to be fierce rivals.
  Parsons also appeared in many cameo spots in movies, including Without Reservations (1946), and Starlift (1951).
caption: June Allyson reveals a secret to Louella (1946)
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