Free Delivery Over $100
|
|
|||
|
||||
Overview"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'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." Full Product DetailsAuthor: Samantha BarbasPublisher: University of California Press Imprint: University of California Press Edition: New edition Dimensions: Width: 15.20cm , Height: 2.80cm , Length: 22.90cm Weight: 0.590kg ISBN: 9780520249851ISBN 10: 0520249852 Pages: 426 Publication Date: 24 October 2005 Audience: General/trade , General Format: Paperback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: Out of stock  The supplier is temporarily out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you on backorder and shipped when it becomes available. Table of ContentsAcknowledgments 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 IndexReviewsAn 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 Author InformationSamantha 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). Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |
||||
