A Longer Look at Larry Parks

Among those few who’ve even heard the name Larry Parks (1914-1975) there is a tendency to know just two or three things: that he made a big splashed playing Al Jolson in The Jolson Story (1946) and Jolson Sings Again (1949); that he was purportedly blacklisted after testifying to HUAC in 1951; and (if you’re a major showbiz buff) that he was married to the better remembered Betty Garrett.

I try not to be the kind of person who walks around reducing human beings to trivia questions, but in Parks’ case those major details stand like dock piles and everything else seems to have melted like salt in a glass of water. We tend to assume that Parks was either plucked from nowhere (maybe he won some contest) or that he had only been a bit player when he finally struck gold, but at the time of The Jolson Story, Parks had already been starring in films at Columbia for several years, and he DID do stuff afterwards, so we thought it might be interesting to make a brief survey of it.

Originally from Joliet, Illinois, acted with stock companies throughout the late ’30s. He signed with Columbia in 1941. He’s third billed in his very first film Mystery Ship with Paul Kelly and Lola Lane. Four dozen screen credits would follow. In the early years, it’s true that some of his roles were uncredited bit parts, but you can glimpse him in things like Blondie Goes to College (1942), Alias Boston Blackie (1942), Reveille with Beverly (1943), the Ted Lewis vehicle Is Everybody Happy? (1943), and The Deerslayer (1944). He’s second lead in The Black Parachute (1944) with John Carradine, and Counter-Attack (1945) with Paul Muni; co-stars with Jane Frazee in She’s a Sweetheart (1944); and gets top billing in Stars on Parade (1944), Sergeant Mike (1944), and Renegades (1946).

Parks was always an unlikely star, with his bland, ordinary looks and mile-high forehead. Unlikelier still to score a bullseye as Al Jolson, the most electric entertainer of the first half of the 20th century. In those days, in some sense, EVERYONE was an Al Jolson impressionist. But top stars like James Cagney (who’d been George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandyhad turned the part down. Parks, somewhat blah as himself, sprang to life as Jolie and caused a huge sensation in the part, and so he remained at the top for about five years. After The Jolson Story came Down to Earth (1947) with Rita Hayworth and two swashbucklers The Swordsman (1948) and The Gallant Blade (1948). After Jolson Sings Again came Emergency Wedding (1950) with Barbara Hale from Perry Mason.

In 1951 came Parks’ forced testimony before HUAC. A former Communist Party member, he named names, but was blacklisted anyway, and dropped from his Columbia contract. I like to think Jolson, one of the most beloved entertainment figures in the country (and someone in the same patriotic league as chums George Jessel and Walter Winchell) would have had his back, but Jolson had died in 1950. Parks was hung out to dry. The film Love is Better Than Ever with Elizabeth Taylor, shot prior to the scandal, was released in 1952.

It would be a gross exaggeration to say that Parks didn’t work after this. In fact, in most cases, it has been my experience upon investigation to learn that the word “blacklist” is a misnomer. Dropped from major Hollywood stardom? Yes. Able to continue working at a level most show business aspirants would ENVY? Also yes. Parks continued to amass major credits for about another decade. After starring in the English film Cross Up (1954), he did American television shows like Ford Television Theatre, Suspicion, The Untouchables, and Dr. Kildare.John Huston cast him in his film Freud (1962), and he also starred on Broadway in Beg, Borrow, or Steal (1960) and Love and Kisses (1963).

After this he made a fortune in real estate, while continuing to appear occasionally in regional and touring theatre, and in a nightclub act with his wife Betty Garrett. (They had played music halls in Europe with a vaudeville style act as early as 1950). Anyway, if that’s blacklisting, can I please have some? Not to diminish what some people went through, including whatever grilling Parks had to endure at the hands of the barbarians in Congress for a few hours, but I feel American liberals always tend to leave out the important other side of the coin in these discussions, the part about the MILLIONS who were KILLED under the governance of the Soviet Union, China, and other Communist nations. If you are or were a fan of that, yeah, I have a few questions for you.

For more on show business history,please see my book No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous.