An obsessive admiration for Hollywood's film stars, unstoppable ambition, and a touch of deceit propelled Louella Parsons (1881-1972) from a small town middle American journalist to one of Tinsel Town's most powerful and controversial personalities.

Louella Parsons was a Hollywood gossip columnist who served as a personal link between millions of movie fans and the stars they went to see on the silver screen. She made her living ferreting out and publishing the secrets of Hollywood's rich and powerful, but ultimately fragile and easily manipulated, stars and moguls. Over time, Parsons came to resemble the people she wrote about. Like them, she worked hard to keep her own dirty secrets hidden.

Small Town Drama Editor and Teenage Wife

Louella Parsons was born Louella Oettinger in Freeport, Illinois, most probably on August 6, 1881. The birth date needs to be qualified, as Parsons would later steadfastly claim she was born in...