Ursula Parrott was born in Boston in 1900. She graduated from Radcliffe, a small women's liberal arts college in Cambridge Massachusetts. After graduation she moved to Greenwich Village, where she met Lindesay Marc Parrott in 1920. In 1922, Ursula married Lindesay Marc Parrott, who at the time was a reporter for the New York Times. They had a son named Lindesay Marc Parrott Jr. two years later. However, his existence was kept a secret from her husband, as he never wanted to have a son. So, Ursula left the child in the custody of her father and sister and returned to Lindesay, still not speaking a word about the son. It was until 1924 that Lindesay found out that he was a father. As a result, he immediately divorced her, rejected the existence of his son, and never once went to see him. As for Ursula, she still saw her son often, bring him gifts, and eventually gave him a Harvard education. Since the divorce, Ursula had married three other men, while she simultaneously continued to stay involved with her first husband: Charles T. Greenwood, a prominent New York banker, in 1934, John Wildberg, an attorney, in 1937, and Air Force Major Coster Schermerhorn in 1945. She was also rumored to have had affairs with F. Scott Fitzgerald and Sinclair Lewis. Parrott died in New York in 1957 at the age of 57 due to cancer. She died in the charity ward of a New York City hospital.
Career
Parrott's first novel, Ex-Wife, was published in 1929, and was subsequently adapted for film as The Divorcee starring Norma Shearer in 1930. Shearer also starred in an adaptation of the 1930 Strangers May Kiss. Her novel Next Time We Live was adapted for film as Next Time We Love in 1936. Her first novel sold more than 100,000 copies the first year. MGM paid $20,000 for the film rights as well. As a writer, Parrott was most successful between 1929 and 1940. Her son estimated that she earned around $700,000 during that period of time. In December 1942, Parrott became the subject of national coverage when she was brought up on Federal charges of attempting to help the jazz guitaristMichael Neely Bryan escape from the Miami Beach Army stockade, but was found innocent by the jury at her trial.
