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 'just folks', 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' life and career, Samantha Barbas situates Parsons' 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.

About the Author
Samantha Barbas has a Ph.D. in American History from the University of California, Berkeley, and is the author of Movie Crazy: Fans, Stars, and the Cult of Celebrity (2001).

Reviews
"An absorbing book about celebrity culture and Hollywood power politics... a pleasing amalgam of rigorous scholarship and popular history. It will appeal to a wide range of readers." - Sheldon Kirshner, Canadian Jewish News "Thoughtful, well-written." - Gregory, McNamee, Hollywood Reporter "The in-depth description of the power that Parsons wielded within the industry is especially illuminating, as is the chronicle of intense rivalries with other columnists-most notably, Hedda Hopper. Solid details of Parsons's life aid in presenting a three-dimensional portrait of both the woman and the public figure. This well-researched and finely written work will appeal to a wide readership." - Carol J. Binkowski, Library Journal (Starred Review) "This is a terrific book about an unusual life, and the author has done a great service by documenting it so carefully, incidentally exposing all the falsehoods Parsons related in her own 1945 autobiography, The Gay Illiterate." - Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) "A thoughtful biography." - Mark Lewis, New York Times Book Review"



Book Information
ISBN 9780520249851
Author Samantha Barbas
Format Paperback
Page Count 426
Imprint University of California Press
Publisher University of California Press
Weight(grams) 590g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 28mm