Louella Parsons

Louella Rose Oettinger Parsons (August 6, 1881 – December 9, 1972) was an American gossip columnist and screenwriter. At the height of her career, her columns reached 20 million readers across 700 newspapers worldwide. She pioneered the dedicated motion picture column in the United States, launching one in 1914 for the *Chicago Record-Herald*. She later became a powerful force in Hollywood and was widely recognized as the "Queen of Hollywood gossip" until the rise of the more flamboyant Hedda Hopper, with whom she engaged in a long-running feud.

Born in Freeport, Illinois, to Helen (née Stine) and Joshua Oettinger, she was of German Jewish descent on her father's side and through her maternal grandfather, while her maternal grandmother, Jeanette Wilcox, was of Irish origin. During her childhood, her family attended an Episcopal church. She had two brothers, Edwin and Fred, and a sister, Rae. After her father's death, her mother married John H. Edwards in 1890, and the family moved to Dixon, Illinois. Deciding in high school to become a writer or reporter, she gave a graduation speech in 1901 titled "Great Men," after which her principal predicted she would become a great writer. She then took a teacher's course at a local Dixon college, funded by a distant German relative. While still a student, she landed her first newspaper job as a part-time writer for the *Dixon Star*. In 1902, she became Dixon's first female journalist, writing gossip about local social circles, a step that foreshadowed her Hollywood career. She and her first husband, John Parsons, moved to Burlington, Iowa, where her only child, Harriet (1906–1983), later a film producer, was born. There, she saw her first motion picture, *The Great Train Robbery* (1903).

After her marriage ended, Parsons moved to Chicago. In 1912, she got her first taste of the movie industry as a scenario writer for George K. Spoor at Essanay Studios, selling her first script for $25. Her daughter, Harriet, appeared as "Baby Parsons" in several films, including *The Magic Wand* (1912), which Parsons wrote. She also authored a book titled *How to Write for the Movies*. In 1914, she began writing the first U.S. movie gossip column for the *Chicago Record Herald*. During her early Chicago years, she also worked as a reporter for the *Herald*, once covering the *Eastland* disaster by visiting victims' homes to collect personal stories. When William Randolph Hearst bought that newspaper in 1918, she lost her job because Hearst had not yet recognized movies and movie personalities as news. She moved to New York City and wrote a similar movie column for the *New York Morning Telegraph*. This caught Hearst's attention after she interviewed his mistress and protégé, Marion Davies. While most critics disparaged Davies, Parsons urged readers to "give this girl a chance" and heaped praise on the former chorus girl, forging a friendship between the two women. In 1923, Hearst offered Parsons a job as the $200-a-week motion-picture editor of his *New York American*. Her constant praise of Davies—the phrase "Marion never looked lovelier" became a standard in her column and a cultural catchphrase—led to persistent speculation that she owed her position to a scandal she kept quiet. In 1924, director Thomas Ince died after being taken off Hearst's yacht, allegedly for indigestion. Many Hearst papers falsely claimed Ince had not been on the boat and had fallen ill at Hearst's home. Charlie Chaplin's secretary reported seeing a bullet hole in Ince's head when he was removed. Rumors swirled that Chaplin was having an affair with Davies and that a shot aimed at Chaplin may have killed Ince. Parsons was reportedly on the yacht that night but never mentioned the incident in her columns. The official cause of death was heart failure.

Parsons was a founding member of the New York Newspaper Women's Club and served as its president for one term in 1925. That same year, she contracted tuberculosis and was given six months to live. She spent a year in Palm Springs, California, which helped make it a popular resort for Hollywood stars. She then moved to Arizona for the dry climate, and later to Los Angeles, where she settled. With the disease in remission, she returned to work. Hearst suggested she become a syndicated Hollywood columnist for his newspapers. As their relationship solidified, her *Los Angeles Examiner* column appeared in over 700 newspapers worldwide, reaching more than 20 million readers, and she became one of the most powerful voices in the movie business. Beginning in 1928, she hosted a weekly radio program featuring movie star interviews, sponsored by SunKist. A similar program in 1931 was sponsored by Charis Foundation Garment. In 1934, she signed a contract with...