In 1912, she had her first taste of the movie industry working for George K. Spoor as a scenario writer at the Essanay Company in Chicago, selling her first script for $25.

[10][11] There was persistent speculation that Parsons was elevated to her position as the Hearst chain's lead gossip columnist because of a scandal about which she did not write.

[6] As she and the publishing mogul developed an ironclad relationship, her Los Angeles Examiner column came to appear in over seven hundred newspapers the world over,[6] with a readership of more than 20 million, and Parsons gradually became one of the most powerful voices in the movie business with her daily allotment of gossip.

In 1934, she signed a contract with the Campbell's Soup Company and began hosting a program titled Hollywood Hotel, which showcased stars in scenes from their upcoming movies.

[10] Her husband Harry Martin was a urologist and Hollywood physician, and it was thought that he passed on information he learned in his position as a studio doctor.

[6] She considered the biggest scoop of her career to be the divorce of Douglas Fairbanks Sr. and Mary Pickford, at that time the most famous couple in Hollywood.

In contrast to her arch-rival Hedda Hopper, who was notorious for her column's crass tone, Parsons' writing style was often described as "sweetness and light" or "gooey".

[7]: 3 She became known in Hollywood for assuming an air of goofy vagueness in order to snap up material without people suspecting she was listening or otherwise letting their guard down.

Hopper was then a moderately successful actress, and according to Parson's successor, Dorothy Manners, "if anything happened on a set—if a star and leading man were having an affair—Hedda would give Louella a call."

She was offered a position as a Hollywood columnist by the Esquire Feature Syndicate due to a recommendation by Andy Hervey of MGM's publicity department.

Hopper first publicly scooped Parsons with the divorce of the president's son Jimmy Roosevelt (a Goldwyn employee), who was involved with a Mayo Clinic nurse, from his wife, Betsey.

[10] When rumors began to surface that Orson Welles debut film Citizen Kane was inspired by Hearst's life, Parsons lunched with the director and believed his evasions and denials.

[10] Hopper arrived uninvited to an early screening of the film and wrote a scathing critique, calling it a "vicious and irresponsible attack on a great man".

On the warpath, Parsons then demanded a private screening of the film and threatened RKO chief George J. Schaefer on Hearst's behalf, first with a lawsuit and then with a vague but powerful threat of consequences for everyone in Hollywood.

[22]: 206  Horrified by what she saw, Louella rushed out of the studio screening room to cable Hearst, who telegraphed back the terse message "Stop Citizen Kane".

[23]: 111  She also warned other studio heads that she would expose the private lives of people throughout the industry and reveal long-suppressed scandalous information.

[10] In the early 1950s, the Los Angeles Examiner ran on its front page, above Parsons's byline: "Ingrid Bergman Baby Due in Three Months at Rome".

Bergman had left her husband, neurologist Peter Lindström, to live in Italy with director Roberto Rossellini but the news that she might be pregnant was met with some skepticism.

[10] Hopper, who had been a public supporter of Bergman, had believed the actress' denial of the pregnancy, and printed a fervent repudiation of the rumor.

[26] Parsons had allegedly received the tip from Howard Hughes[10] who was incensed at Bergman for being unable to shoot a film for him as promised.

[10] It has been suggested that Hopper was set up as a columnist by Louis B. Mayer (with the blessing of other studio chiefs) to offset Louella's monopolistic power.

She alleged that her first husband died on a transport ship on the way home from World War I, leaving her a widow instead of a divorced single mother.

From this union, they had one daughter named Harriet who was born on August 23, 1906, in Burlington City, Des Moines County, Iowa.

His specialty was venereal diseases and he advanced to the post of Twentieth Century Fox's chief medical officer.

[28] After Martin's death she dated songwriter Jimmy McHugh, a fellow Catholic who introduced her to many of the new teenage musical sensations of the time, including Elvis Presley.

[10] Harriet would later follow her mother's passion for writing, and would find employment as a writer for a popular California magazine.