Hedda Hopper

Hopper in 1929

She eventually ran away to New York City and began her career in the chorus on the Broadway stage. Hopper was not successful in this venture. Florenz Ziegfeld called the aspiring starlet a "clumsy cow" and brushed off her pleas for a slot in his lavish Follies. After a few years, she joined the theater company of matinee idol DeWolf Hopper, whom she called "Wolfie" and would later marry.

She remained in the chorus and they toured the country. While in the Hopper company, she realized that chorus and understudy jobs were not acting. She wanted to act, and she knew she would have to prove herself before she could hope to get anywhere in the theater. Hearing that Edgar Selwyn was casting his play The Country Boy for a road tour, she went to his office and talked him into letting her audition for the lead. She was given the role and that show toured for thirty-five weeks through forty-eight states. She studied singing during the summer and, in the fall, toured with The Quaker Girl in the second lead, the prima donna role. The show closed in Albany.

Hopper and Carole Lombard in The Racketeer (1929)

In 1913, she became the fifth wife of DeWolf Hopper, whose previous wives were named Ella, Ida, Edna and Nella. The similarity in names caused some friction, as he would sometimes call Elda by the name of one of his former wives. Consequently, Elda Hopper paid a numerologist $10 to tell her what name she should use, and the answer was "Hedda".[2] She began acting in silent movies in 1915. Her motion picture debut was in The Battle of Hearts (1916) with William Farnum, but she made a major splash in Virtuous Wives (1918), in which she established her pattern of playing society women.[3] Hopper decided to upstage the film's headline starlet, Anita Stewart, by spending all of her $5,000 salary on a lavish wardrobe from the upscale boutique Lucile, which she wore in the film. By 1920, she was commanding $1,000 per week as a free agent in New York; in 1923 she moved to Hollywood and became a contract player for Louis B. Mayer Pictures.[3] She appeared in more than 120 movies over her 23 year acting career.

As Hopper's movie career waned in the mid-1930s, she looked for other sources of income. In 1935, she agreed to write a weekly Hollywood gossip column for The Washington Herald at $50 a week (equivalent to $1,067 in 2022), which was cancelled after four months when she refused to take a $15 pay cut.[3]

In 1937, Hopper was offered another gossip column opportunity, this time with the Los Angeles Times. Her column, entitled "Hedda Hopper's Hollywood", debuted on February 14, 1938.[4] Hopper could not type, nor spell very well, so she dictated her column to a typist over the phone. Hopper used her extensive contacts forged during her acting days to gather material for her column.[5] Her first major scoop had national implications: in 1939, Hopper printed that President Franklin Roosevelt's son James Roosevelt was divorcing his wife Betsey after being caught in an affair with a nurse at the Mayo Clinic.[3]

Hopper in the early 1920s

Part of Hopper's public image was her fondness for wearing extravagant hats, for which the Internal Revenue Service allowed her a $5,000 annual tax deduction as a work expense.[6] During the Second World War, the Nazis used photographs of Hopper in her extravagant hats for propaganda, as a symbol of "American decadence".[7] Her annual income was $250,000, enabling her to live an luxurious lifestyle and maintain a mansion in Beverly Hills, which she described as "the house that fear built".[3]

After Hopper printed a story about an extramarital affair between Joseph Cotten and Deanna Durbin, Cotten ran into Hopper at a social event and pulled out her chair, only to continue pulling it out from under her when she sat down.[8] The next day, he received dozens of flower bouquet deliveries and congratulatory telegrams from others in the industry, thanking him for having the courage to do what everyone else dreamed of doing.[3]

Hopper spread rumors that Michael Wilding and Stewart Granger had a sexual relationship; Wilding sued Hopper for libel and won.[9]

Hopper was an advocate for actress Joan Crawford, whose career suffered in the early 1940s after she was labelled "Box-Office Poison" and forced to resign from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In 1945, Hopper reprinted a press release for Mildred Pierce in her column, which described Crawford as a leading contender for the Best Actress Oscar. Such was Hopper's influence that she was credited with swinging the decision in Crawford's favor when she won the award. Hopper's support has been described as the first instance of lobbying the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to favor a certain nominee.[3]

Hopper lobbied for African American actor James Baskett to receive an Academy Award for his performance in the 1949 film Song of the South. Baskett would ultimately receive an honorary award for his performance.[10]

Actress ZaSu Pitts compared Hopper to "a ferret".[11]

Joan Bennett sent Hopper a "$35 valentine. The $35 went for a skunk which carried a note: 'Won't you be my valentine? Nobody else will. I stink and so do you.'" Hopper reportedly commented that the skunk was beautifully behaved. She called it Joan, and passed it on to actor James Mason and his wife as a present, as they had made the first bid after the story about the unusual gift made the news.[12]

During World War II, Hopper's only child, actor William "Bill" Hopper, served in the Navy in Underwater Demolitions. She chastised Douglas Fairbanks Jr., the son of her old friend Douglas Fairbanks, because she thought the younger Fairbanks was shirking his duty to his country. Fairbanks Jr. recalled in his memoirs Salad Days that he was already in uniform serving in the United States Navy, and despised Hopper for her insinuations.[13]

Actor Kirk Douglas recounted an interaction between Hopper and Elizabeth Taylor. At the premiere of Taylor and husband Richard Burton's film The Sandpiper (1965), Hopper began to complain when she saw screenwriter Dalton Trumbo's screen credit (she had led the charge in blacklisting Trumbo for his Communist party membership). This led Taylor to turn around and say "Hedda, why don't you just shut the fuck up?"[14]

In 1963, Hopper complained in her column that three out of five Best Actor Oscar nominees were British and only two were American: "The weather's so foul on that tight little isle that, to get in out of the rain, they all gather in theatres and practise Hamlet on each other."[15]

When Hopper had initially come to Hollywood, she and Louella Parsons had a mutually beneficial arrangement. Hopper was then a moderately successful actress, and according to Parson's successor, Dorothy Manners, "if anything happened on a set—if a star and leading man were having an affair—Hedda would give Louella a call.” In return, Hedda was guaranteed a few lines of copy under Louella's increasingly influential byline.[16]

After MGM canceled her contract, Hopper struggled to maintain her career as an actress. She was offered a position as a Hollywood columnist by the Esquire Feature Syndicate due to a recommendation by Andy Hervey of MGM’s publicity department.

One of the first papers to pick up “Hedda Hopper’s Hollywood” was the Los Angeles Times, a morning paper like Louella's Examiner. Hopper first publicly scooped Parsons with the divorce of the president's son Jimmy Roosevelt (a Goldwyn employee), who was involved with a Mayo Clinic nurse, from his wife, Betsey. The story became front-page news across the country.[5]

When rumors began to surface that Orson Welles’ debut film Citizen Kane was inspired by Hearst's life, Parsons lunched with the director, and believed his evasions and denials.[5] Hopper arrived uninvited to an early screening of the film and wrote a scathing critique, calling it a "vicious and irresponsible attack on a great man".[17]^: 205 As a result, Hearst sent Parsons a letter complaining that he had learned about Citizen Kane from Hopper, and not her.

On the warpath, Parsons then demanded a private screening of the film, and threatened RKO chief George Schaefer on Hearst's behalf, first with a lawsuit, and then with a vague but powerful threat of consequences for everyone in Hollywood. On January 10, Parsons and two lawyers working for Hearst were given a private screening of the film.[17]^: 206 Horrified by what she saw, Louella rushed out of the studio screening room to cable Hearst, who telegraphed back the terse message "Stop Citizen Kane".[5] Soon after, Parsons called Schaefer and threatened RKO with a lawsuit if they released Kane.[18]^: 111 She also warned other studio heads that she would expose the private lives of people throughout the industry and reveal long-suppressed scandalous information.[5][17]^: 206

When Schaefer—who had also been threatened by Hearst with legal action—announced that Citizen Kane was scheduled to premiere in February 1941 at Radio City Music Hall, Parsons contacted the manager of Radio City Music Hall and advised him that exhibiting the film would result in a press blackout.[5] The premiere was canceled. Other exhibitors were fearful of being sued by Hearst and refused to show the film.[17]^: 216 As a result, despite support from Hearst adversaries such as Henry Luce, on release overall the film lost money.[17]^: 215[19] Parsons was by no means alone in her campaign against Citizen Kane but Welles never quite recovered his position in Hollywood afterward.[5]

In the early 1950s, the Los Angeles Examiner ran on its front page above Parsons's byline: "Ingrid Bergman Baby Due in Three Months at Rome". Bergman had left her husband, neurologist Peter Lindstrom, to live in Italy with director Roberto Rossellini, but the news that she might be pregnant was met with some skepticism. Bergman was well known for the angelic role of Sister Benedict in The Bells of St. Mary's.[5]

Hopper, who had been a public supporter of Bergman, had believed the actress' denial of the pregnancy, and printed a fervent repudiation of the rumor.[6] However, Bergman was indeed pregnant and Hopper, enraged at being scooped, launched a PR campaign decrying Bergman for being pregnant out of wedlock, and carrying a married man's child.[20] Parsons had allegedly received the tip from Howard Hughes,[5] who was incensed at Bergman for being unable to shoot a film for him as promised.

Reportedly, whereas Hopper was more inclined to see their much-publicized antagonism as funny and good for business, Parsons took it personally and saw Hopper as a rival in every possible way. Hopper also referred to Doc Martin as "that goddamn clap doctor", which infuriated Parsons.[5]

It has been suggested that Hopper was set up as a columnist by Louis B. Mayer (with the blessing of other studio chiefs) to offset Louella's monopolistic power. Gossip columnist Liz Smith, stated that: "The studios created both of them. And they thought they could control both of them. But they became Frankenstein monsters escaped from the labs."[5] Hopper and Parsons had a combined readership of 75 million in a country of 160 million.[5][21]

• The character of Patty Benedict in The Big Knife (1955) played by Ilka Chase is likely inspired by Hedda Hopper. In the film, she is an influential gossip columnist who threatens to publish an old scandal involving the main character if he does not give her information on his struggling marriage. The film is an adaption of a play of the same name written by Clifford Odets.
• Jane Alexander received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination portraying Hopper in the television film Malice in Wonderland (1985), opposite Elizabeth Taylor as Louella Parsons.
• Cynthia Adler portrayed Hedda Hopper in the documentary Carmen Miranda: Bananas is My Business (1995).
• Hopper was portrayed by Katherine Helmond in the television film Liz: The Elizabeth Taylor Story (1995).
• Rue McClanahan played Priscilla Tremaine, a thinly veiled version of Hopper, on the AMC's show The Lot (1999), a comedic limited series about the Golden Age of Hollywood.
• Fiona Shaw played Hopper in the movie RKO 281 (1999), which is concerned with the making of Citizen Kane (1941).
• By Ingrid van Bergen in The Man in the Moon (2002). A Radio-ballett with Charlie Chaplin. A piece for Acoustic Stage Dt. Der Mann im Mond. Ein Radio-Ballett mit Charlie Chaplin. Stück für Akustische Bühne. Written by Evelyn Dörr, and broadcast on WDR in 2002.
• By Joanne Linville in the television film James Dean (2001).
• By Jenn Colella in Chaplin: The Musical during 2006 and on Broadway in 2012.
• Helen Mirren played Hedda Hopper in the movie Trumbo (2015), directed by Jay Roach.
• Tilda Swinton played in Hail, Caesar! (2016), the double part of Thora and Thessaly Thacker, two identical twin sister gossip columnists (mimicking the rivalry between Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons, but both heavily based on Hopper herself).
• In the first season of Feud in 2017, Hopper was played by Judy Davis and received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination in the portrayal of the rivalry between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford.
• The New York City Opera announced that it will stage the East Coast premiere of Stewart Wallace's Hopper's Wife – a 1997 chamber opera about an imagined marriage between painter Edward Hopper and Hedda Hopper – at Harlem Stage from April 28 through May 1, 2016.[39][40]