The First Lady of Hollywood (eBook)

A Biography of Louella Parsons

Samantha Barbas (Autor)

eBook Download: PDF

2005
426 Seiten
University of California Press (Verlag)
978-0-520-94024-6 (ISBN)

Infos

Hollywood celebrities feared her. William Randolph Hearst adored her. Between 1915 and 1960, Louella Parsons was America's premier movie gossip columnist and in her heyday commanded a following of more than forty million readers. This first full-length biography of Parsons tells the story of her reign over Hollywood during the studio era, her lifelong alliance with her employer, William Randolph Hearst, and her complex and turbulent relationships with such noted stars, directors, and studio executives as Orson Welles, Joan Crawford, Louis B. Mayer, Ronald Reagan, and Frank Sinatra-as well as her rival columnists Hedda Hopper and Walter Winchell. Loved by fans for her "e;just folks,"e; small-town image, Parsons became notorious within the film industry for her involvement in the suppression of the 1941 film Citizen Kane and her use of blackmail in the service of Hearst's political and personal agendas. As she traces Parsons's life and career, Samantha Barbas situates Parsons's experiences in the broader trajectory of Hollywood history, charting the rise of the star system and the complex interactions of publicity, journalism, and movie-making. Engagingly written and thoroughly researched, The First Lady of Hollywood is both an engrossing chronicle of one of the most powerful women in American journalism and film and a penetrating analysis of celebrity culture and Hollywood power politics.

Inhalt

Acknowledgments
Prologue

PART I
1. Early Years
2. Essanay
3. The Column
4. New York
5. "The Lovely Miss Marion Davies"

PART II
6. On the Way to Hollywood
7. Hollywood
8. Feuds
9. Radio
10. The Best and the Hearst

PART III
11. The First Lady of Hollywood
12. Raising Kane
13. The Gay Illiterate
14. War and Peace
15. Scandal
16. The End of an Era
17. Eclipse

Notes
Bibliography
Index

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 24.10.2005
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
• Themenwelt: Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Film / TV
• Themenwelt: Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Theater / Ballett
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Sport ► Tanzen / Tanzsport
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Kommunikation / Medien ► Journalistik
• Themenwelt: Wirtschaft
• Schlagworte: American Journalism • american movie columnist • american screenwriter • blackmail • Celebrity culture • Citizen Kane • film industry • film journalism • Frank Sinatra • hedda hopper • Hollywood • Hollywood History • hollywood power politics • Joan Crawford • Louella Parsons • louella rose oettinger • Louis B Mayer • Marion Davies • movie gossip columnist • Orson Welles • queen of hollywood gossip • Ronald Reagan • Studio Era • the first lady of hollywood • Walter Winchell • William Randolph Hearst
• ISBN-10: 0-520-94024-5 / 0520940245
• ISBN-13: 978-0-520-94024-6 / 9780520940246