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Hollywood Writer

From 1924 to 1941, Tully published many articles on Hollywood stars of the day, including Lon Chaney, John Gilbert, Boris Karloff, Clara Bow, William Powell, Charles Laughton, Joan Crawford,   Fredric March,  Bette Davis, W.C. Fields, Jean Harlow, Gary Cooper, Edward G. Robinson, Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Clark Gable, to name but a few.

This page contains some photographs from this part of Tully's life.

While he was known and feared for his blunt presentation of his impressions of these people, he was also eagerly sought after by them for more coverage, because a Tully Hollywood article was widely read.

His book Jarnegan was the first Hollywood novel written.

Read one of Tully's articles on Charlie Chaplin, for whom he worked 18 months as a publicist. Chaplin did not care for Tully's biography of him, and managed to have its publication stopped.

From the Introduction to Tully's biography by Bauer and Dawidziak:

How, Scully wondered, could the same writer produce both "this mass of bilge and enduring literature?"  It’s a question that, in all probability, Scully was wise enough never to pose directly to Tully.

"People are enamored of his speech," Scully said of his friend, "and almost break their necks in their efforts to meet him. In all too short a time he has broken the rest of what’s left of them and tossed it back to their humbler relations for decent burial. . . His right arm weaves across your vision, feinting like a fighter leading you into the final blow which will leave you slug-nutty for life; you either take it, and stagger from the salon a stumble-bum, or you scram for your car and scream all the way home that the guy’s impossible ­ an army tank let loose among civilized people in a drawing room. The bigger you are the harder you fall. There isn't a mind in Hollywood that can stand up to him in a finish fight."

Maybe that’s why Tully was called the most feared man in Hollywood. Or maybe it was because he was one of the very few journalists covering the movie industry honestly at a time when studio-generated publicity was swallowed and spit back in puff pieces. Or maybe it was because he never lost that tremendous right cross (something matinee idol John Gilbert found out when he foolishly attacked Tully in the Brown Derby restaurant).

There was even a duality within the duality. Tully’s Hollywood pieces fell into one of two basic categories: serious profiles (published in magazines like "Vanity Fair" and "Esquire") and lighter features (published in such fan magazines as "Photoplay" and "Screen Play"). No question, the harder-hitting pieces made Tully plenty of enemies in Tinseltown. Chaplin, for whom he worked as a writer and publicity man in the mid-twenties, was fearful enough to pressure a New York publisher into dropping Tully’s completed biography of the great comedian. It never saw print.

Despite his reputation and despite the break with Chaplin, Tully remained a loyal friend to an amazingly diverse circle of friends. The closest included Mencken, Dempsey, Nathan, and Walter Winchell. Other notable Tully pals were directors James Cruze and Frank Capra, writers Rupert Hughes and Damon Runyon, producers Paul Bern and Mack Sennett, actors Clark Gable and Wallace Beery, and comedian W.C. Fields.

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