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Adela Rogers St. Johns
Adela Nora Rogers St. Johns (May 20, 1894 - August 10, 1988) was an American journalist, novelist, and screenwriter. She wrote a number of screenplays for silent movies but is best remembered for h...view moreAdela Nora Rogers St. Johns (May 20, 1894 - August 10, 1988) was an American journalist, novelist, and screenwriter. She wrote a number of screenplays for silent movies but is best remembered for her groundbreaking exploits as “The World’s Greatest Girl Reporter” during the 1920s and 1930s and her celebrity interviews for Photoplay magazine.
She was born in Los Angeles, the only daughter of Los Angeles criminal lawyer Earl Rogers and his wife Harriet Belle Greene. She attended Hollywood High School, graduating in 1910.
In 1912 she joined the San Francisco Examiner as a reporter on crime, politics, society, and sports news before transferring to the Los Angeles Herald in 1913 and then joining new fan magazine Photoplay. Her celebrity interviews helped the magazine become a success through her numerous revealing interviews with Hollywood film stars. She also wrote short stories for Cosmopolitan, The Saturday Evening Post, and other magazines and finished nine of her thirteen screenplays before returning to reporting for newspapers. She left newspapers again in 1948 to focus on writing books and to teach journalism at UCLA.
During the late 1960s and 1970s she was a frequent guest on various talk shows including Jack Paar’s The Tonight Show and The Merv Griffin Show. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1970.
In 1976, at the age of 82, she returned to reporting for the Examiner to cover the bank robbery and conspiracy trial of Patty Hearst, granddaughter of her former employer, publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst.
St. Johns was married three times and had four children. She died in Arroyo Grande, California in 1988, aged 94, and is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.view less