Louella Parsons (August 6, 1881 – December 9, 1972) was an American gossip columnist who had her own radio show which featured interviews with Hollywood celebrities.
She was born Louella Rose Oettinger in Freeport, Illinois, the daughter of Joshua Oettinger and Helen Stein both of whom were Jewish. She had two brothers, Edwin and Fred, and a sister, Rae. In 1890, her widowed mother married John H. Edwards. They lived in Dixon, Illinois, later hom...
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Louella Parsons (August 6, 1881 – December 9, 1972) was an American gossip columnist who had her own radio show which featured interviews with Hollywood celebrities.
She was born Louella Rose Oettinger in Freeport, Illinois, the daughter of Joshua Oettinger and Helen Stein both of whom were Jewish. She had two brothers, Edwin and Fred, and a sister, Rae. In 1890, her widowed mother married John H. Edwards. They lived in Dixon, Illinois, later hometown of Ronald Reagan. While still in high school, Parsons obtained her first newspaper job when she became drama editor for the Dixon Morning Star.
She and her first husband, John Parsons, moved to Burlington, Iowa. She was a lonely and unhappy Iowa housewife who hated small-town life. Her only child, Harriet, who grew up to become a film producer, was born there. While in Burlington, Parsons saw her first motion picture, The Great Train Robbery (1903).
When her marriage broke up, Parsons moved to Chicago where she began writing movie...
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