Larry Parks (original name: Samuel Lawrence Klausman Parks) was born on December 13, 1914 in Olathe, Johnson County, Kansas, United States. He was the son of Frank Parks, who worked in advertising, and Leona Klausman. Two childhood illnesses left the boy with a weakened heart and legs of unequal length, requiring special compensating shoes.
Larry Parks graduated from Joliet Township High School in 1932. His contact with physicians inspired Larry Parks to study medicine at the University of Illinois.
After graduating, Larry Parks went to New York in search of theater work, supporting himself by ushering at Carnegie Hall, by inspecting trains for the New York Central Railroad, and by working as a guide at Radio City Music Hall. He became associated with the Group Theatre, appearing in their 1937 production of Clifford Odets's Golden Boy. Later, in Hollywood, Group Theatre member John Garfield helped him to become a low-paid contract player at Columbia Pictures. At Columbia, in the actor's equivalent of an assembly-line job, he appeared in thirty low-budget B pictures within five years, beginning with Mystery Ship in 1941. Parks became a star when Columbia's studio heads conducted a highly publicized talent search, auditioning dozens of actors and mimics, then "discovered" Parks on their own back lot. They auditioned Parks and then cast him in the title role of The Jolson Story, in which he lip-synched the two dozen sound-track songs recorded by Jolson himself.
The movie was an enormous hit in 1946, even though Parks earned only his regular contract player's salary. Columbia then cast him opposite superstar Rita Hayworth in Down to Earth (1947), followed by two period swashbucklers, The Swordsman (1947) and The Gallant Blade (1948), none of these created much excitement. After a prolonged legal battle with Columbia, which finally improved the financial terms of his contract, Parks made Jolson Sings Again (1949), which repeated its predecessor's success. The Jolson films proved to be the pinnacle of Larry Parks's brief career as a film star, though not of his notoriety.
His first success coincided with investigations by the House Committee on Un-American Activities into charges of communist infiltration of the film and broadcasting industries. Parks was among nineteen "unfriendly" witnesses first subpoenaed in 1947, but he was not among the highly confrontational "Hollywood Ten" actually called to testify before the committee at that time. Larry Parks's public ordeal did not come until after the initial hearings had split Hollywood into warring factions. In March 1951, he was subpoenaed for a second time, along with eight others, and, with his new celebrity status, he quickly fell prey to the committee's eagerness to exploit media coverage of their star-studded inquiries. Under pressure, and after careful coaching by the committee's staff, Parks became the first filmstar to admit that he had joined the Communist party in Hollywood (in 1941) and that he had attended some dozen meetings over the next four years.
On March 23, 1951, the Los Angeles Examiner headlined "Larry Parks lists names of ten Hollywood Reds" (he had actually named twelve). The next day's paper revealed the price of his agonized public soul-searching: "Larry Parks loses $75, 000 screen role. " Parks was damned from all sides: by Hedda Hopper, John Wayne, and others as unpatriotically soft on Reds, and by the left as a weak informer. In testifying, Parks had predicted the end of his career, which indeed declined precipitously. Although he made occasional appearances on stage and television in the next decade, Parks acted in only three more films before his death, none made in Hollywood. His last film role was a supporting part in John Huston's British film Freud (1962). In later years, Larry Parks made his living in real estate. Parks died of a heart attack at the age of 60, on April 13, 1975.
Larry Parks was a member of Communist party.
On September 8, 1944, Larry Parks married actress Betty Garrett. They had two children.
