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Adela Rogers St. Johns, born Nora Adela Rogers on May 20, 1894, in Los Angeles, California, was the daughter of renowned criminal defense attorney Earl Rogers, a brilliant lawyer who died young due to alcoholism. Lionel Barrymore earned a Best Actor Oscar for portraying a character based on her father in "A Free Soul" (1931), a film adapted from a 1927 novel written by Adela. Another of her stories inspired the classic film "What Price Hollywood?" (1932), which served as the forerunner to "A Star Is Born" (1937) and its subsequent remakes.
Earl Rogers was a lawyer famed for securing acquittals in difficult cases; his reputation was so esteemed that fellow legal legend Clarence Darrow enlisted his help in a jury tampering case. He was also friends with newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. At nineteen, Adela began her career as a reporter for Hearst's "San Francisco Examiner," dubbed the "Monarch of the Dailies." As an entry-level reporter, she covered a wide range of topics, including crime, sports, politics, and high society.
In the early 1920s, she left newspaper work to become a freelance writer. During the vibrant Jazz Age, she supported herself by interviewing celebrities for "Photoplay Magazine," the leading movie publication of the era. She also published short stories in prestigious magazines like Hearst's "Cosmopolitan" and worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood before returning to Hearst newspapers in the late 1920s.
St. Johns continued reporting until 1948, when she shifted her focus to writing books and teaching. In 1970, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States, from President Richard Nixon. She returned to reporting in 1976 at age 82 to cover the trial of Patricia Hearst, granddaughter of William Randolph Hearst.
She was married to Richard Irving Hyland and Ivan St. Johns. Adela Rogers St. Johns passed away on August 10, 1988, in Arroyo Grande, California, at the age of 94.
