Ep 34: Adela Rogers St Johns, 'Mother Confessor of Hollywood'

Adela Rogers St Johns was a triple threat at the typewriter. She was a reporter, screenwriter, and novelist. In this episode, I talk about the time her boss, William Randolph Heart, asked her to debate the leader of a woman's club on the question 'Is the Modern Woman a Failure?' One of her best screenplays, The Red Kimona, from 1925, feels like a modern treatment of the 18th century sentimental novel, which taught women how to wise up to male seduction. I also compare her novel The Single Standard with the screen adaptation, starring Greta Garbo from 1929. Adela's long writing career, one of the most influential in American media, began when she was only a teenager and stretched into her eighties. She was a sass mouth dame for the ages.