industry ever boasted.”
When word of Louella’s retirement reached her nemesis Hedda Hopper, the slightly younger, always less powerful Hopper spent the night celebrating. It was Lucille Ball Day at the New York World’s Fair, and the seventy-nine-year-old former showgirl literally kicked off her shoes and danced until dawn. Her rivalrywith Louella was so all-consuming that Hedda didn’t notice that the kingdom she had inherited had all but vanished. Two years later, on January 30, 1966, Hedda caught double pneumonia and died within two days. News of Hedda’s death reached Louella at her Hollywood nursing home, where the former queen of gossip had become virtually mute, silently watching old movies on TV all day. When she was told that Hedda had died, however, a smile crossed Louella’s face and she spoke for the first time anyone there could remember. “GOOD!” she said.
If the gossip industry had a golden age, it coincided with the “golden age” of the Hollywood studio system in the 1930s and 1940s. And, like Hollywood during those years, the gossip industry had its constellation of fixed stars. Chief among them was Walter Winchell, who is often credited with inventing the gossip column. Just below Winchell in the firmament were “the ladies,” as the syndicated columnists, and legendary rivals, Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper were referred to jointly. Like Winchell, “the ladies” were more famous and more powerful than many of the movie stars they covered. Louella, the more influential of the two, was, by most accounts, Hollywood’s first gossip columnist (Winchell started out as a Broadway columnist). “Hollywood loved her,” noted writer Paul O’Neil. “She was Queen—the one it deserved—and she reigned for forty years.”
Indeed, the accolades and honors bestowed upon Louella during the years when her power was at its peak routinely invoked royalty. When Louella’s boss, William Randolph Hearst, threw a party for her in 1948, eight hundred of Hollywood’s most famous movie stars and most powerful moguls jammed Cocoanut Grove in Los Angeles’s Ambassador Hotel to pay homage.
“No queen,” Louis B. Mayer toasted her, “could wish for richer jewels than the bright crown of friendship you possess.”
“You have a heart,” Darryl Zanuck declared, “as big as the church itself.”
It wasn’t, of course, Louella’s heart that Hollywood loved, but the one thousand or so newspapers that carried her daily column. During the 1930s through the 1950s, she and Hedda were an unofficial but essential part of the Hollywood studio systerm.Studio executives, well aware that the public curiosity the columnists fed with their items about the stars heightened the box office appeal of those stars and thus increased studio profits, parceled out items to Hedda and Louella every day. They also forced stars to cooperate in giving exclusives to the two women. In return, Hedda and Louella were careful never to antagonize the studio moguls themselves. And in fact, they were ardent defenders of the studio system.
Louella often referred to Hollywood as “this marvelous town” and sang the praises of “our magnificent industry.” Although she is remembered as a shrewish harridan, she was, in fact, a protector of the stars. She knew much more about them than she ever revealed. In fact, since her husband, Docky, was a urologist for Twentieth Century Fox and frequently administered tranquilizers or testosterone shots to stars, she often found out about their medical conditions before the stars themselves did—and she usually kept quiet about them. While she did, from time to time, chide or even attack stars, the scoldings usually took place when actors and actresses violated moral codes—as when Ingrid Bergman scandalized American moviegoers by becoming pregnant out of wedlock—or when they disobeyed the orders of studio executives. “This is the first time I have publicly spanked Judy,” Louella wrote
When word of Louella’s retirement reached her nemesis Hedda Hopper, the slightly younger, always less powerful Hopper spent the night celebrating. It was Lucille Ball Day at the New York World’s Fair, and the seventy-nine-year-old former showgirl literally kicked off her shoes and danced until dawn. Her rivalrywith Louella was so all-consuming that Hedda didn’t notice that the kingdom she had inherited had all but vanished. Two years later, on January 30, 1966, Hedda caught double pneumonia and died within two days. News of Hedda’s death reached Louella at her Hollywood nursing home, where the former queen of gossip had become virtually mute, silently watching old movies on TV all day. When she was told that Hedda had died, however, a smile crossed Louella’s face and she spoke for the first time anyone there could remember. “GOOD!” she said.
If the gossip industry had a golden age, it coincided with the “golden age” of the Hollywood studio system in the 1930s and 1940s. And, like Hollywood during those years, the gossip industry had its constellation of fixed stars. Chief among them was Walter Winchell, who is often credited with inventing the gossip column. Just below Winchell in the firmament were “the ladies,” as the syndicated columnists, and legendary rivals, Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper were referred to jointly. Like Winchell, “the ladies” were more famous and more powerful than many of the movie stars they covered. Louella, the more influential of the two, was, by most accounts, Hollywood’s first gossip columnist (Winchell started out as a Broadway columnist). “Hollywood loved her,” noted writer Paul O’Neil. “She was Queen—the one it deserved—and she reigned for forty years.”
Indeed, the accolades and honors bestowed upon Louella during the years when her power was at its peak routinely invoked royalty. When Louella’s boss, William Randolph Hearst, threw a party for her in 1948, eight hundred of Hollywood’s most famous movie stars and most powerful moguls jammed Cocoanut Grove in Los Angeles’s Ambassador Hotel to pay homage.
“No queen,” Louis B. Mayer toasted her, “could wish for richer jewels than the bright crown of friendship you possess.”
“You have a heart,” Darryl Zanuck declared, “as big as the church itself.”
It wasn’t, of course, Louella’s heart that Hollywood loved, but the one thousand or so newspapers that carried her daily column. During the 1930s through the 1950s, she and Hedda were an unofficial but essential part of the Hollywood studio systerm.Studio executives, well aware that the public curiosity the columnists fed with their items about the stars heightened the box office appeal of those stars and thus increased studio profits, parceled out items to Hedda and Louella every day. They also forced stars to cooperate in giving exclusives to the two women. In return, Hedda and Louella were careful never to antagonize the studio moguls themselves. And in fact, they were ardent defenders of the studio system.
Louella often referred to Hollywood as “this marvelous town” and sang the praises of “our magnificent industry.” Although she is remembered as a shrewish harridan, she was, in fact, a protector of the stars. She knew much more about them than she ever revealed. In fact, since her husband, Docky, was a urologist for Twentieth Century Fox and frequently administered tranquilizers or testosterone shots to stars, she often found out about their medical conditions before the stars themselves did—and she usually kept quiet about them. While she did, from time to time, chide or even attack stars, the scoldings usually took place when actors and actresses violated moral codes—as when Ingrid Bergman scandalized American moviegoers by becoming pregnant out of wedlock—or when they disobeyed the orders of studio executives. “This is the first time I have publicly spanked Judy,” Louella wrote
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