Hedda and Louella: A Dual Biography of Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons
George Eells
Virgin (4 December 1972)
What’s it about?: A dual biography of the most powerful and influential gossip queens in the history of the media. Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons originally enjoyed a symbiotic relationship of sorts, but later became bitter rivals as the pull and influence of each grew, and their lives, behaviours, ethics, and marriages (some highly publicised, others kept under wraps) are well documented.
My opinion: What a fascinating piece of media flotsam this is. Friends and family know that I’m slightly obsessed with the history and economics of the media, and the so-called Golden Age of Hollywood. Hedda and Louella seems comical if you judge it by its cover. In many ways, it is, simply because of how outlandish the lives and careers of these two gossip columnists were. Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons could make or break a star’s career with their commentary. In this book, George Eells does a good job chronicling the lives and times of the two gossip columnists, and I enjoyed learning about Hopper’s previous career as an actress. The anecdotes from Frances Marion, Gypsy Rose Lee, Hedda’s son William Hopper, and others, are awesome.
Unfortunately, the book is very light on actual analysis. A little more on the social impact of their columns would have gone a long way in adding some substance and depth to the overall story. Still, it is entertaining, and to read such a biography now, decades after its publication, makes for a fascinating comparative study on old establishment media and online news today. On one hand, this breed of gossip journalist seems like an anachronism. The old newspapers, who owned them, the attitude of the general public towards details of celebrities and their intimate relationships, et cetera.
On the other hand, not much has changed. Watch Piers Morgan and you’ll see that his “interviews” are just thinly-veiled hit-pieces on his guests. For the better part of two decades, the writers and founding employees of Gawker Media enjoyed an editorial style that emphasised unfiltered honesty and saying the things others were too afraid to say. At the centre of all this was Gawker founder Nick Denton. Like Hopper and Parsons before him, his editorial direction could make or break careers, and it all came to a head when Hulk Hogan successfully sued Gawker Media into the dirt, with help from Peter Thiel, who had long held a grudge against the company and Denton. Louella Parsons also felt the sting from lawsuits piling up. The studio heads of the day had enough of her as well, and she made a full retreat from public life, living out the rest of her days in relative obscurity. As someone who followed Bollea v. Gawker with the eagerness of an investigative reporter seizing on an urban legend, the parallels between that case and the lives of Hopper and Parsons were more than enough to keep me interested.
A fun read, definitely. Light on analysis and commentary, but recommended for those interested in chronicling the history of the media, or anyone just looking for a good story.
Lawrence Deveney 