Customer Reviews

The First Lady of Hollywood: A Biography of Louella Parsons

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I would like to commend Ms. Barbas for the wonderful book she has written about a relative of mine.
Given the length and breadth of the material covered, I found only 3 very minor errors in the entire 345 pages of text, and I
think that is remarkable.
My congratulations to Ms. Barbas, and my aunt would have been very proud of the thoroughness and accuracy of her book (I think).

I grew up the the 1950s and bought every movie magazine with articles by Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper that my meager allowance would afford me. Dr. Barbas has produced an academic, thoroughly researched work (there are a ton of footnotes)with the ring of authenticity to it. Fingers crossed that she devotes equal time to Hedda Hopper.

For Christmas a good friend gave me this exceiting biography (Hi there Mac!) and ever since New Years I've been on a race to finish it. But some books are so good you don't like them to end, and for the past few weeks I've been envying my former self who still had the whole book in front of him instead of a rapidly dwindling few.

Louella Parsons was a woman or iron determination who summoned up the inner strength to leave her shame behind in the small town where she'd grown up, and go to New York where nobody would know her. With her she had a second husband and a small daughter, Harriet, who quietly like a pet, watched her mother with a mixture of fondness and venom. I wonder if Harriet the Spy was named after her! It sounds improbable on the face of it but both HTS author Louise Fitzhugh and Harriet Parsons formed part of the same glamorous Lesbian New York underground in the late 1950s, early 1960s, the years of Harriet's inception. Anyhow Louella soon rose to the top of the Hearst newspaper empire by a unbeatable combination of loyalty, native smarts, and an earnest brown-nosing that is almost endearing to view today, although how it must have irked her professional rivals way back then.

Samantha Barbas is no John Didion but she lays out the facts with a great deal of skill. She has done her homework (and even conducted a handful of new interviews, such as one with Mamie Van Doren, a Hollywood starlet who claims to have been one of Louella's victims. For Louella (I suppose I should call her "Parsons") was very much a bogeyman, a prop employed by the studio system to keep errant stars in line. She crucified Orson Welles, who had the temerity not only to make a jackass out of Hearst in CITIZEN KANE but also to lie about it to Parsons' face. "It deals with a dead man," he told her when she pressed him about the rumors that KANE was going to be a demolition of Hearst. She never forgave left-wing leaning stars like Chaplin. And yet she had a soft side and people could cozy up to her, particularly the unpleasant songwriter Jimmy McHugh. Samantha Barbas shows us how McHugh "dated" Parsons for years, always stringing her along, never actually taking her emotional needs seriously but palming her off with a ditty called "Louella" which made her feel like a schoolgirl. It's a shame a once distinguished press like UC Berkeley can't afford a proofreader nowadays. Or else Dr. Barbas isn't very familiar with the stars of Hollywood--Parsons' beat--otherwise she wouldn't have written "Frederic March," would she?

But what she's terrific at is discovering the roots and the extent of Parsons' feminism, which went far and wide and early. Even before women's suffrage (1920) Parsons was in there fighting for women's rights, and she did help a lot of women journalists find their way. Good for her, too bad she turned into a tragic old harridan figure, half Miss Havisham, half Cassandra, nearly forgotten by the time of her death. I feel sure that THE FIRST LADY OF HOLLYWOOD will remain the standard biography for at least the next few years, for what could supplant it? Anyone writing in the future on Parsons will be like a pygmy standing on the shoulders of a giant.

I hope Dr. Barbas continues to give us more, perhaps next she should turn to the life of Harriet Parsons and clear up the speculations about "Harriet the Spy"?

I have waited over twenty years for an indepth book of Louella Parsons, and while there were alot of "the usual supects" including the deaths of Thomas Ince and Paul Bern- Ms. Barbas did a great deal of homework and the beginings of Louella's life has stuff I never heard before. While she generously throws in all the contrary things said about Louella's career, she also gives this journalist her due,and does not act like someone pulled her teeth to do it.

I wanted a good summer book to read and this is it. A fun book and it does tell an in depth account of Louella Parsons life. Who knew this much about her? It is her whole life story. I love biographies and this one kept my interest.

Louella Parson's is probably unknown to most movie fans today, but in her heyday when movie columnists competed with studio czars for power she and fellow columnist Hedda Hopper brought the movie czars and everyone else in the movie industry to their knees.
The columnists wielded a lot of weight. There were plenty of them which included Jimmy Fielder and Mike Connolly, but Hopper and Parson's were the two gals that everyone truly feared. A mere blind item would have people quaking in their britches, but a full on attack was devestating and often a career ender.
Parson's story and how she came to the world of Hollywood gossip is an interesting one. A decidedly unglamorous sort (unlike her sharpest competitor Hopper) she was short and decidedly dumpy looking. She was an add contrast to the people she wrote about. Her career started in the Midwest where she was born, but flourished when she started working for the Hearst Syndicate. Her main focus was to promote the film industry and lavish spectacular reviews on Marion Davies, Hearst's long time companion.In short order, the formula which sold papers for Hearst was applied to her writing. Louella became the first lady of Hollywood/ the implicit queen of gossip. When she road the crest of popularity all of the movie colony paid tribute to her with lavish gifts and deferential treatment. Her only competition came later when failed movie actress Hopper changed careers and provided serious competition.
This book supplies a lot of information about Parson's career, her relationship with Hearst, her methods/sources of getting information, and her habit of bullying people to do her bidding. Very interesting stuff indeed! Needless to say, Louella had her own problems. Her last husband (known as 'Doc' or 'Docky' Martin') was a drunk who was always dodging malpractice suits and her daughter Harriet was a lesbian movie producer.
While Louella's career crested in the '50's with the advent of hard core scandal rags such as Confidential and the popularity of tv, she carried on eventually as a dotty old woman whose column were ghost written by Dorothy Manners.
I liked this book very much and thought it was a nice package tha blended gossip with the power of the press.

Louella Parsons's reign over Hollywood lasted decades during which time she was, arguably, the most powerful female journalist in America. If a cross-town bus had hit Winchell, she would've been THE most powerful journalist in the country. Barbas' comprehensive biography acknowledges that Parson's reputation for being a scarcely literate, often mean-spirited gossip-monger is largely deserved. But she balances it with detailing Louella's overlooked kind side, happy to give credit where credit was due and rarely one to hold a grudge...unless your name is Hedda Hopper, in which case all bets are off. So central was Louella's place in the history of Hollywood's golden era, that fans and scholars of this time will find much to learn from this detailed and entertaining account of one hell of a gal.

This book was surprisingly interesting about the life of screen gossip Louella Parsons and her shenanians in tinseltown. I thoughoutly enjoyed it. This would make an interesting movie.

Enjoyed the READ BUT VERY "WORDY"! I lived in HOLLYWOOD for 20yrs.(1958-78 and knew a lot of people in the ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY so there was much that was FAMILIAR. I did enjoy the HISTORY!

This book embarassed me. How could I be interested in so unflattering a woman as Louella Parsons. And, actually, I found her life boring boring boring.