Arabella and Co~~Gallery

Hollywood

and the “Lolly-Hop” years!

In Hollywood ’s early days when the studios first began to grow out of the orange groves, there were moving pictures with no sound and actors with no names. Then Carl Laemmle hired Florence Lawrence for $1000 a week to work for his Independent Motion Picture Co. (IMP) and the star system was born! Actors became very valuable assets and studios paid dearly to protect their investments. But in the early 1930s, two women brought them to their knees!

Lolly

Hop

Lolly was Louella Parsons, a plump newspaper woman from Illinois who had come to California to die! Born Louella Rose Oettinger in Freeport, Illinois, she was twice divorced with a young daughter and , in 1914, was writing the country’s first

Lolly with Normas Shearer

movie column for the Chicago Record Herald. She had moved to New York and joined the New York American, another Hearst newspaper, when she was diagnosed with tuberculosis and told she had only 6 months to live. A close friendship with her boss William Randolph Hearst got her a ticket to sunny California and a new job there where she not only recovered but her column began appearing in over 400 Hearst newspapers. Not long afterwards she married Dr. Harry Martin, a studio physician with a checkered past, who she called “Docky”. He would become one of her most important sources of information.

Hedda with Robert Walker and Miss Photoflash of 1946

“Hop” was Hedda Hopper, already in Tinseltown with about 115 movies under her belt. Good roles were getting scarce in 1936 when she decided to try a new career first on a radio chit-chat show then as a newspaper columnist in 1938. Born Elda Furry in Holidaysburg, Pennsylvania in 1885, she left a stage career to become the fifth wife of matinee idol DeWolf Hopper and, in 1916, they both headed for Hollywood. But DeWolf’s film career was a bust and, after 9 years, so was the marriage but Hedda stayed in Hollywood with their son. Trimmer, more glamorous and less abrasive than Parsons and with a penchant for outrageous chapeaux, Hedda became Lolly’s archrival. . She also had the backing of some studio heads (particularly L.B. Mayer) who feared Louella’s increasing power. But, while Parsons was known to hold grudges, Hedda was often much more ruthless when it came to those who dared cross her.

Louella and Hedy Lamarr
have dessert.

The “dish sisters” both had a wide network of “staff reporters” …beauticians, florists, switchboard operators and even cab drivers. Louella also had her “eyes and ears” in medical labs thanks to hubby, “Docky” Martin and was always the first to know when the rabbit died. It was her scoop on Ingrid Bergman’s pregnancy from her affair with Roberto Rossellini that led to Ingrid’s 7-year ostracism in the United States. Hedda, on the other hand, had “inside” sources on the studio sets…producers, performers, directors and especially the wardrobe crew who would know when a “baby bump’ needed camouflaged. She was also a bit more political, quick to call a star’s patriotism into question when they didn’t agree with her views. And where domestic scandals were involved, Hedda took the man’s side almost every time. Between the two of them, both studios and stars were held in a vise they couldn’t seem to escape.

Studio heads began to caution their stars to keep on the good side of these ladies and remember to pass on any good tidings when they occurred to forestall the vindictiveness that would come if they forgot. Carole Lombard called Louella at least once a week and Frances Goldwyn took her along to the obstetrician. Hedda was so enraged that Gene Tierney forgot to tell her she was pregnant that she threatened to leave

Lolly and Hedda together with Debbie Reynolds

Gene’s name out of the column even when her pictures were released. Criticism or lack of attention by either Lolly or Hedda could make or break a star’s career. There was only one other columnist more powerful than these two twin towers of babble….and that was Walter Winchell. He also covered Hollywood on his Sunday night radio program and in his column, but he wasn’t on the West Coast or part of the film colony so he didn’t have the day-to-day influence exerted by the two women. In Hollywood, they held all the cards.

But by the 1960s, the studio system was over and stars had to fend for themselves. Without the studios, the gossip mavens found their power dwindling…and tell-all tabloids rose up to take their place.

Louella Parsons lost some of her control when William Randolph Hearst died in 1951. Her last byline appeared in 1965. Retired, she spent her last years in a Santa Monica nursing home where she died of

Louella's grave

arteriosclerosis in 1972 at the ripe old age of 91. She is buried in Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City, California

Hedda's gravestone.

Hedda Hopper continued her radio show, and even had a television special on NBC in 1960. She published her book “The Whole Truth and Nothing But..” in 1962 and continued writing her column until she died February 1 st, 1966 of pneumonia. Hedda is buried in Rose Hill, Cemetery, Altoona, PA… where she still shaved 5 years off her age on her tombstone!

Gossip will always be a part of the Hollywood scene but it will be unlikely that the power that rested in the hands of these two women will ever be duplicated.