Special Guest Scheduled to Appear
Women on Top: Legacies of Women in Global Cinema
Scholar and author Marsha Gordon joins IU Cinema to discuss the work and Hollywood career of Ursula Parrott, a prolific and best-selling author, screenwriter, and consistent headline-grabber.
Once the best known ex-wife in America, Ursula Parrott (1899-1957) was a prolific and best-selling author, Hollywood screenwriter, and consistent headline-grabber during her colorful, unconventional life. The press covered her new books, Hollywood deals, marriages and divorces, and numerous run-ins with the law. She was Radcliffe-educated; had four optimistic walks down the aisle (and back); piloted for the Civilian Air Corps during World War II; co-founded a weekly rural Connecticut newspaper; and travelled the world, including an extended story-collecting trip to Russia in the 1930s. She also worked as a screen and story writer out of Astoria as well as during several stints in Hollywood; her words gave Norma Shearer her only Academy Award and launched Jimmy Stewart’s career as a lead actor.
This talk will focus on a few of the ten films, mostly produced in the 1930s, that were adapted from Parrott’s writing. Scholar and author Marsha Gordon will consider the way the studios treated Parrott as an authority on and mouthpiece for the modern woman, as is nicely illustrated by the story of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s failure to successfully adapt one of her stories for MGM.
Marsha Gordon is Professor of Film Studies at North Carolina State University, a recent Fellow at the National Humanities Center, and an NEH Public Scholar. She is the author of numerous articles and books, most recently Becoming the Ex-Wife: The Unconventional Life and Forgotten Writings of Ursula Parrott, and co-director of several short documentaries.
"Makes an excellent case for Parrott as an unjustly forgotten historical figure." — The New Yorker
"Remind[s] us of the brazenly talented women sidelined by convention." — New York Times
