Ursula Parrott (March 26, 1899 – September 1957), was an American writer of romantic novels. Her first book, Ex-Wife (1929), was a best seller, and was adapted for film as The Divorcee, starring Norma Shearer. Exploring changing sexual mores and their implications for women, Ex-Wife was considered scandalous in its time. From 1930 to 1936, Parrott sold the rights to eight novels and stories that were made into films.
Personal life
Ursula Parrott was born Katherine Ursula Towle in Dorchester, Massachusetts. Her father was Dr. Henry Towle and her mother was Towle's second wife, Mary Catherine Flusk. Towle's first wife, Elizabeth Mooney, had died shortly after giving birth to a daughter, Margaret. Parrott's older half-sister would later adopt the name Madge Tyrone.
Parrott graduated from Radcliffe College, a small women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts. After graduation she moved to Greenwich Village, where she met Lindesay Marc Parrott in 1920.
In 1922, Ursula married Parrott, who at the time was a reporter for The New York Times. They had a son named Lindesay Marc Parrott, Jr., two years later. However, Parrott, Sr., didn't want a son and the baby's existence was kept a secret. Ursula left the child in the custody of her father and sister. It wasn't until 1924 that Parrott, Sr., found out that he was a father. He divorced her and denied the existence of the child. Ursula, however, saw her son often, brought him gifts, and eventually gave him a Harvard education.
Ursula had married three other men, Charles T. Greenwood, a prominent New York banker, in 1934; John Wildberg, an attorney, in 1937; and Air Force Major Coster Schermerhorn (grandson of Charles Coster) in 1945. She continued to be involved with Wildberg and was also rumored to have had affairs with F. Scott Fitzgerald and Sinclair Lewis.
Parrott died of cancer in the charity ward of a New York hospital in 1957 at the age of 58.
Career
Parrott's Ex-Wife, her first novel, was published anonymously in 1929. A popular sensation, it sold more than 100,000 copies in nine editions. MGM paid $20,000 for the film rights as well. Ex-Wife was adapted for film as The Divorcee (1930) starring Norma Shearer, who also starred in an adaptation of Strangers May Kiss, published in 1930. Her novel Next Time We Live was adapted for film as Next Time We Love in 1936. As a writer, Parrott was most successful between 1929 and 1940. Her son estimated that she earned around $700,000 ($ in dollars) during that period of time.
In December 1942, Parrott became the subject of national coverage when she was brought up on federal charges of attempting to help the jazz guitarist Michael Neely Bryan escape from the Miami Beach Army stockade, but was found innocent by the jury at her trial.
See also
Next Time We Love
There's Always Tomorrow (1956 film) The Divorcee Strangers May Kiss Love Affair (1932 film)
References
Works
Ex-Wife, with a foreword by Alissa Bennett and a afterword by Marc Parrott, New York: McNally Editions, 2023 (Original: 1929),
Further reading
Marsha Gordon: Becoming the ex-wife: the unconventional life and forgotten writings of Ursula Parrott, Oakland, California : University of California Press, 2023,
External links
Westall, Susan - The Development of a Bio-Bibliography for Ursula Parrott with Indexing and Navigation Tools in Printed and Web-Based Versions (Master's Research Paper, Kent State University) - Education Resources Information Center Ursula Parrott books.google.com
1899 births
1957 deaths
20th-century American novelists
20th-century American short story writers
20th-century American women writers
American women novelists
American women short story writers
Novelists from Massachusetts
Novelists from New York (state) Radcliffe College alumni Women romantic fiction writers Writers from Boston Writers from New York City