Adela Rogers St. Johns has the unofficial title of veteran "sob sister" of American journalism due to the years she spent covering the Hollywood scene between 1913 and 1928. Her days at Hollywood High School prepared her for her work as a profile writer for the Hearst movie magazine Photoplay, where she cultivated an image of "mother confessor of Hollywood" and wrote about such stars as Garbo and Valentino. Following a recess to raise her family, she returned to her newspaper career and was assigned to some of the major news and sports stories of the day; she is considered the first woman sportswriter in the United States. Her sensational and personal writing style suited the tastes of the 1920s and 1930s. She wrote for Hearst publications for forty years.

Adela Rogers was born in Los Angeles on 20 May 1894. Her father, Earl Rogers, was a prominent trial lawyer who once...