WEBVTT - Hedda Hopper 0:00:01.360 --> 0:00:04.280 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:14.040 of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly 0:00:14.120 --> 0:00:19.760 Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson, and today we are 0:00:19.800 --> 0:00:24.560 talking about Head of Hopper. And although she started out acting, 0:00:24.680 --> 0:00:27.520 what really made her famous was her work in newspapers. 0:00:28.120 --> 0:00:31.159 For several decades, she literally could make or break a 0:00:31.200 --> 0:00:34.280 movie career with her gossip column sending statements to print, 0:00:34.280 --> 0:00:36.760 regardless of whether there was any actual proof of what 0:00:36.840 --> 0:00:40.440 she claimed or the behavior she alleged that people are 0:00:40.440 --> 0:00:44.320 participating in or not. I find her super fascinating. I 0:00:44.360 --> 0:00:48.440 read both of her books growing up. She has been 0:00:48.479 --> 0:00:56.120 in a kajillion movie and TV projects. Most recently was 0:00:56.160 --> 0:01:01.240 the show Feud, which is a Ryan Murphy show, But 0:01:01.920 --> 0:01:05.120 it's largely a lot of her. Discussion of her is 0:01:05.160 --> 0:01:07.800 about her and Luella Parsons because they were kind of 0:01:07.800 --> 0:01:11.240 the two big power players in terms of gossip columns 0:01:11.240 --> 0:01:14.840 in Hollywood in the early part of the twentieth century. 0:01:15.440 --> 0:01:20.000 And I am forever just I marvel at the power 0:01:20.040 --> 0:01:27.480 that they both had and how much they created ways 0:01:27.520 --> 0:01:32.640 of consuming information about movies and movie stars that we 0:01:32.720 --> 0:01:36.360 are still wrapped up in today, even though they're kind 0:01:36.400 --> 0:01:39.920 of nonsensical. We could talk about this more behind the scenes, 0:01:39.959 --> 0:01:43.280 because I feel like I have Chicken or the Egg 0:01:43.400 --> 0:01:46.319 thoughts about the movie industry and how it has developed 0:01:46.319 --> 0:01:50.880 in this way. But she just is like a wild 0:01:51.520 --> 0:01:53.800 story of her own. So I thought we would talk 0:01:53.840 --> 0:01:57.360 about her today. We may do an episode on Luella 0:01:57.440 --> 0:02:00.160 Parsons in the future because she's also pretty interesting, and 0:02:00.200 --> 0:02:01.680 we'll talk about her some on this, but we're not 0:02:01.720 --> 0:02:03.840 going to go into her backstory. They are often, as 0:02:03.840 --> 0:02:07.440 I said, discussed kind of as a payer. Even one 0:02:07.440 --> 0:02:11.080 of the biographies I read is a simultaneous biography of 0:02:11.120 --> 0:02:12.920 the two of them that came out in the seventies. 0:02:14.240 --> 0:02:17.880 And yeah, so we'll talk about Luella some today, but 0:02:18.200 --> 0:02:20.200 really we're going to talk about head of Hopper and 0:02:20.280 --> 0:02:24.240 how she got to this point pretty late in her 0:02:24.280 --> 0:02:30.200 life of being a gossip columnist and having just such influence, 0:02:30.680 --> 0:02:33.280 and also how she used that influence sometimes in just 0:02:34.000 --> 0:02:38.519 really cruel ways. So she started life with a completely 0:02:38.520 --> 0:02:42.360 different name, which was Elda Furry. She was born June second, 0:02:42.400 --> 0:02:46.880 eighteen eighty five, in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania. She described that sort 0:02:46.880 --> 0:02:51.000 of as a suburb of Altoona, Pennsylvania. Later on, she 0:02:51.040 --> 0:02:54.120 wrote that she was born during an electrical storm, and 0:02:54.200 --> 0:02:57.280 she also fudged her age and routinely said she was 0:02:57.280 --> 0:03:00.960 born in eighteen ninety. Her father was a butcher, and 0:03:01.000 --> 0:03:04.800 she described her upbringing as hard. She had eight siblings, 0:03:04.840 --> 0:03:07.680 although not all of them lived to adulthood, and she 0:03:07.919 --> 0:03:11.359 made it sound as though she never really got much 0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:15.560 praise or encouragement. When her brother sherman got hired away 0:03:15.600 --> 0:03:18.280 from their father's butcher shop, she was made to pick 0:03:18.360 --> 0:03:20.840 up his duties, and this is something that she said 0:03:20.960 --> 0:03:25.239 made her tough enough to be unafraid of anyone in Hollywood. 0:03:25.320 --> 0:03:28.639 Later in her life, while she was still a teenager 0:03:28.680 --> 0:03:32.640 in Altoona, Elda acquired an accessory which defined her style 0:03:32.840 --> 0:03:35.640 for the rest of her life. She bought herself a 0:03:35.720 --> 0:03:38.160 hat with her own money, and she wrote of that 0:03:38.200 --> 0:03:41.120 hat quote, it was a thing of beauty, of bright 0:03:41.160 --> 0:03:44.240 green straw with red velvet geraniums. It made me feel 0:03:44.360 --> 0:03:47.720 rich as a queen. That hat was a greater attraction 0:03:47.840 --> 0:03:50.840 on Easter morning than the choir or the preacher's sermon. 0:03:51.440 --> 0:03:53.360 I said, if a hat can get the attention of 0:03:53.400 --> 0:03:57.640 this many people, I'll never go bareheaded, and she stuck 0:03:57.680 --> 0:03:59.800 to that because she was known for her hat collection 0:04:00.640 --> 0:04:03.240 and the money she spent on it throughout the rest 0:04:03.240 --> 0:04:06.880 of her life. When she was seventeen, Elda saw a 0:04:06.920 --> 0:04:10.080 touring company performed the play Captain Jinks of the Horse 0:04:10.160 --> 0:04:13.480 Marines that involves a love triangle with a bet and 0:04:13.560 --> 0:04:16.599 an opera star and a lot of complications before a 0:04:16.640 --> 0:04:20.520 happy ending. Ethel Barrymore starred in the play. It's often 0:04:20.520 --> 0:04:23.320 credited with being the show that made her famous, and 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:26.839 Elderfurry thought that this was amazing, and after seeing the play, 0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:29.720 she knew she wanted to act, so in nineteen oh seven, 0:04:29.800 --> 0:04:33.280 she left Pennsylvania for New York, intent on a stage career. 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:38.520 In her autobiography, she describes this exit from Pennsylvania as quote, 0:04:38.600 --> 0:04:41.719 when life became intolerable at home, I ran away to 0:04:41.760 --> 0:04:44.960 New York and went on the stage. But really, and 0:04:45.000 --> 0:04:47.080 you'll often see like she saw this play and then 0:04:47.120 --> 0:04:50.040 she left, But really she took some time before that 0:04:51.160 --> 0:04:53.480 to get some education that was going to benefit her 0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:57.760 in her acting career. She didn't actually get formal education 0:04:58.000 --> 0:04:59.920 past eighth grade because she had to work in the 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:03.279 family business. But once she got the acting bug. She 0:05:03.400 --> 0:05:05.800 did manage to get her father to let her enroll 0:05:05.880 --> 0:05:09.880 in music school in Pittsburgh, so she did that for 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:12.960 a while. But she did make that move from Opportunity 0:05:12.960 --> 0:05:15.599 to New York, kind of in a spur of the moment, 0:05:15.640 --> 0:05:18.680 way after an incident in which, according to her, her 0:05:18.720 --> 0:05:21.680 brother broke her favorite chair, and that was just the 0:05:21.760 --> 0:05:24.480 last straw for her. She had been secretly saving up money, 0:05:24.720 --> 0:05:27.000 and she got that money. She packed a suitcase and 0:05:27.040 --> 0:05:31.000 she left without telling anyone. And she wasn't though, without 0:05:31.040 --> 0:05:33.360 a place to go in New York, because her uncle 0:05:33.400 --> 0:05:34.960 lived there and she just kind of showed up on 0:05:34.960 --> 0:05:38.040 his doorstep. In New York, she got a job working 0:05:38.040 --> 0:05:40.919 as a chorus girl with the Aborn Opera Company. She 0:05:41.360 --> 0:05:45.400 was not naturally talented, but she was determined. As she 0:05:45.480 --> 0:05:47.800 moved in the social circles of the theater, she met 0:05:47.839 --> 0:05:50.560 one of the most successful actors of the day, de 0:05:50.680 --> 0:05:55.000 Wolf Hopper. He's most famously remembered today for his recitation 0:05:55.160 --> 0:05:58.440 of the Ernest Lawrence Thayer baseball poem Casey at the Bat. 0:05:59.320 --> 0:06:03.000 Hopper was twenty seven years older than Elda, and he 0:06:03.080 --> 0:06:06.920 clearly captivated her. She later wrote quote. To me, Hopper 0:06:07.000 --> 0:06:11.239 was something special, something new under the sun. His massive size, 0:06:11.279 --> 0:06:14.720 his voice, his storytelling gift. Wolfe was a six foot 0:06:14.720 --> 0:06:17.719 three riot. From the moment I saw him, he fascinated me. 0:06:18.520 --> 0:06:21.080 She wrote a lot of very adoring things about him, 0:06:21.160 --> 0:06:24.280 even long after the marriage had ended, describing how his 0:06:24.440 --> 0:06:27.520 voice was something you couldn't help but fall in love with, 0:06:27.560 --> 0:06:31.480 and describing it as sounding quote like some great church organ. 0:06:32.240 --> 0:06:34.960 Hopper had his own acting company and Elda joined it, 0:06:35.240 --> 0:06:38.239 and though they soon started a romance, they were really 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:41.839 not open about it. No, he had a little bit 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:46.800 of a history with women. He had already been married 0:06:46.800 --> 0:06:48.960 a divorce four times at this point. She was so 0:06:49.080 --> 0:06:51.400 much younger. They just kind of kept it quiet initially, 0:06:52.279 --> 0:06:55.560 And when Elda, who had gotten frustrated with chorus rolls, 0:06:55.640 --> 0:06:58.279 managed to land a lead part in a touring production 0:06:58.440 --> 0:07:00.599 of The Country Boy, which meant she no longer with 0:07:00.720 --> 0:07:04.000 de Wolf's company, he sent her letters throughout her eight 0:07:04.080 --> 0:07:07.440 month tour, and then when that tour ended, she decided 0:07:07.480 --> 0:07:10.160 she also wanted to be in musical theater. Instead of 0:07:10.200 --> 0:07:13.679 doing straight acting again, not as chorus girl. She wanted 0:07:13.720 --> 0:07:16.680 to be a main player, and so she started studying voice, 0:07:16.760 --> 0:07:19.000 and then she landed a role in The Quaker Girl, 0:07:19.760 --> 0:07:22.280 so once again she went back on tour, and again 0:07:22.400 --> 0:07:26.240 Wolfy wrote to her constantly. She continued to keep the 0:07:26.280 --> 0:07:29.280 secret of their romance, even as her colleagues asked who 0:07:29.360 --> 0:07:31.680 this man was who so dutifully wrote to her and 0:07:31.800 --> 0:07:35.240 was obviously just adoring of her, And she later said 0:07:35.240 --> 0:07:37.960 that the strain of keeping this secret of their romance 0:07:38.120 --> 0:07:40.880 was so great that she was never able to keep another. 0:07:41.960 --> 0:07:44.480 By the time the tour of The Quaker Girl ended, 0:07:44.560 --> 0:07:47.960 Elda and Wolfe were secretly engaged. She went to a 0:07:48.040 --> 0:07:50.800 jewelry store and bought her own ring by herself, and 0:07:50.840 --> 0:07:53.480 the next morning she took the earliest train from Albany 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:56.600 to Grand Central station, where De wolf and his chauffeur 0:07:56.640 --> 0:07:59.600 were waiting. The couple headed to New Jersey and they 0:07:59.640 --> 0:08:02.840 got me read in secret. They only told the manager 0:08:02.960 --> 0:08:06.160 of the Algonquin Hotel where mister Hopper was living, so 0:08:06.240 --> 0:08:09.000 that he could arrange for Elda to have separate but 0:08:09.200 --> 0:08:13.280 adjoining rooms with her new husband. As Holly said earlier, 0:08:13.360 --> 0:08:17.720 this was De Wolfe's fifth marriage. As they started telling people, 0:08:17.840 --> 0:08:21.120 Elda told one of the couple's closest friends, Alice Miller, 0:08:21.200 --> 0:08:24.320 and the response was that she burst into tears because 0:08:24.320 --> 0:08:27.600 she was worried about what her young friend had done. 0:08:27.880 --> 0:08:30.440 Their other close friends, who were slowly let in on 0:08:30.480 --> 0:08:33.640 the secret, ended up celebrating with a private dinner, and 0:08:33.720 --> 0:08:38.360 eventually Elda telegraphed her parents and her father, who was 0:08:38.440 --> 0:08:41.640 several years younger than her new husbandd wolf was so 0:08:41.840 --> 0:08:44.200 angry that he put out a statement to the press 0:08:44.240 --> 0:08:49.080 that the marriage quote pains me greatly. Essentially, everyone kind 0:08:49.080 --> 0:08:51.240 of thought that de wolf had taken up with such 0:08:51.280 --> 0:08:53.760 a young woman to stroke his own ego, and that 0:08:53.840 --> 0:08:57.000 he was going to soon cast her aside. The family 0:08:57.120 --> 0:08:59.679 statement meant that soon that news was everywhere. There was 0:08:59.720 --> 0:09:02.000 no keeping any kind of secret, and the newly weds 0:09:02.000 --> 0:09:04.559 were suddenly having to patch up a lot of friendships 0:09:04.559 --> 0:09:07.160 with people who were shocked by this news or just 0:09:07.240 --> 0:09:09.319 kind of hurt at having been left out of the loop. 0:09:10.320 --> 0:09:14.240 De Wolfe's previous wives had been named Ella, Ida, Edna, 0:09:14.440 --> 0:09:17.800 and Nella, and she found that their similarities led to 0:09:17.840 --> 0:09:20.640 her new husband calling her by all of their names 0:09:20.720 --> 0:09:23.800 and not her own. She wrote, quote, I didn't have 0:09:23.920 --> 0:09:26.360 much personality of my own then, but I'd be darned 0:09:26.360 --> 0:09:28.080 if I was going to give up the shred I 0:09:28.200 --> 0:09:32.040 did possess. So she consulted a numerologist who came up 0:09:32.080 --> 0:09:35.959 with the name Heda de wolf Hopper did not like this, 0:09:36.240 --> 0:09:40.080 but she said he never called her the wrong name again. Yeah, 0:09:40.120 --> 0:09:42.080 she loved it and he was not pleased, but it 0:09:42.120 --> 0:09:45.720 worked out, I guess. On January twenty sixth, nineteen fifteen, 0:09:45.840 --> 0:09:48.640 Hedda and De Wolf had a son, William de wolf 0:09:48.679 --> 0:09:53.040 Hopper Junior. She had been touring Withdwolf on his current tour, 0:09:53.120 --> 0:09:56.160 but she returned to New York early because her pregnancy, 0:09:56.559 --> 0:09:59.160 which they had also kept secret, had just become too 0:09:59.240 --> 0:10:02.800 uncomfortable for life on the road. The birth of their 0:10:02.840 --> 0:10:05.160 son came several weeks early, and De Wolf was not 0:10:05.360 --> 0:10:07.520 in New York with her at the time. He actually 0:10:07.559 --> 0:10:09.440 found out that she had had the child while he 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:13.240 was on stage in Chicago, and then once he returned home, 0:10:13.640 --> 0:10:16.840 the family traveled with a nanny to Nantucket and there 0:10:16.880 --> 0:10:20.199 they spent the summer. Later that same year, the couple 0:10:20.240 --> 0:10:22.920 decided to move to Hollywood, something a lot of stage 0:10:22.920 --> 0:10:25.480 actors were doing to try to get into the new 0:10:25.559 --> 0:10:29.000 and growing film industry. De wolf had been offered a 0:10:29.040 --> 0:10:33.480 contract with Triangle Film Corporation. Initially, do wolf had wanted 0:10:33.520 --> 0:10:36.360 Heda to give up her career when they married, and 0:10:36.520 --> 0:10:40.360 she acquiesced, but then she took a part, allegedly as 0:10:40.360 --> 0:10:44.240 a favor to their friend William Farnham. In nineteen sixteen, 0:10:44.320 --> 0:10:46.560 she made her on screen debut in the film Battle 0:10:46.559 --> 0:10:49.760 of Hearts. It was the first of many movies for her. 0:10:49.960 --> 0:10:51.839 By the end of the nineteeneen, she had been in 0:10:51.920 --> 0:10:55.880 eleven films and the work continued to come. This was 0:10:55.920 --> 0:10:59.439 good because de Wolfe's talent didn't really translate to the screen. 0:11:00.080 --> 0:11:03.480 His best feature was his voice, and the films were silent. 0:11:04.280 --> 0:11:06.439 Plus he was old enough that he just didn't look 0:11:06.559 --> 0:11:10.240 good on film, according to Heada's account. Later, when his 0:11:10.320 --> 0:11:12.400 contract was up, he went to New York and she 0:11:12.480 --> 0:11:15.040 stayed in California, where the work was steady for her. 0:11:15.720 --> 0:11:18.080 She did eventually go back to New York, and the 0:11:18.120 --> 0:11:20.480 Hoppers bought a house on Long Island so that their 0:11:20.640 --> 0:11:23.360 son could have a home outside of the city. De 0:11:23.480 --> 0:11:25.920 Wolfe had gone back to acting on the stage, and 0:11:26.080 --> 0:11:29.319 Hetta also did some stage work too, and then Sam 0:11:29.360 --> 0:11:32.520 Goldwyn and Edgar Selwyn opened a studio in Fort Lee, 0:11:32.640 --> 0:11:35.480 New Jersey, to make movies, and they called headed to 0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:37.160 see if she'd like to make some films on the 0:11:37.160 --> 0:11:41.199 East Coast, and she did, and she also established her 0:11:41.240 --> 0:11:44.280 reputation as a woman with a sharp tongue very early 0:11:44.320 --> 0:11:47.480 on in these movies. In nineteen eighteen, she appeared in 0:11:47.480 --> 0:11:50.680 the film Virtuous Wives that was actually the first film 0:11:50.679 --> 0:11:54.400 made by Lewis B. Mayer. She tells this story in 0:11:54.440 --> 0:11:56.880 her book about how there was this weird guy kind 0:11:56.880 --> 0:11:58.599 of lurking around the set and they kept having to 0:11:58.640 --> 0:12:00.480 tell him to get out of the shot, and nobody 0:12:00.520 --> 0:12:03.960 realized it was Lewis B. Mayer and he had to 0:12:03.960 --> 0:12:05.960 tell people at the end, like, oh, I'm the producer. 0:12:07.080 --> 0:12:09.800 But Elda, who at this point was going by Heada, 0:12:09.880 --> 0:12:12.360 but she was also being billed as Missus d wolf Hopper, 0:12:13.000 --> 0:12:17.000 which is how she's credited in that film, fought constantly 0:12:17.080 --> 0:12:20.320 with her co star Anita Stewart. Hedda made a point 0:12:20.320 --> 0:12:23.160 to have custom clothing made for every scene out of 0:12:23.200 --> 0:12:25.920 her own pocket. She spent her entire salary, which is 0:12:26.440 --> 0:12:29.800 quoted as five thousand dollars for this project on new 0:12:29.840 --> 0:12:33.800 clothes and it upstaged the much more famous Stuart with 0:12:33.840 --> 0:12:37.680 her wardrobe, and this caused a huge calamity. In a moment, 0:12:37.800 --> 0:12:40.199 we'll talk about the end of Heada's marriage and her 0:12:40.240 --> 0:12:42.840 life after De Wolfe, but first we will take a 0:12:42.880 --> 0:12:55.960 quick sponsor break. According to Hedda's account, she began to 0:12:56.000 --> 0:12:58.360 fall out of love with her husband when she told 0:12:58.440 --> 0:13:01.240 him that she had gotten a raise the studio and 0:13:01.400 --> 0:13:04.480 was finally making the same amount of money as he was. 0:13:05.520 --> 0:13:08.800 His response to this was anger instead of happiness, and 0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:13.319 he said some very insulting things. They had already been 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:16.440 living on very different schedules and not spending as much 0:13:16.480 --> 0:13:19.520 time together, and then Hadda started to find evidence that 0:13:19.600 --> 0:13:23.520 he was having an affair or multiple affairs. She eventually 0:13:23.600 --> 0:13:26.319 caught him in one of these, and she filed for divorce. 0:13:26.320 --> 0:13:30.000 In nineteen twenty two. D Wolfe Hopper got married again 0:13:30.120 --> 0:13:32.960 to his sixth wife, Lily and Glacier, right after the 0:13:32.960 --> 0:13:37.000 divorce was final. Soon after, Hetta was offered a year 0:13:37.080 --> 0:13:40.120 long contract in Hollywood and she took it. She was 0:13:40.160 --> 0:13:43.240 in a lot of projects, but was always a supporting player. 0:13:43.920 --> 0:13:47.280 Over time, she found she wasn't getting offered contracts and 0:13:47.320 --> 0:13:50.760 she needed to figure out what to do. Interestingly enough, 0:13:50.840 --> 0:13:53.040 during this time, she was friends with the woman who 0:13:53.040 --> 0:13:57.400 would later become her most bitter rival, Luella Parsons, and 0:13:57.520 --> 0:14:01.040 would sometimes slipper information for her gossip column in exchange 0:14:01.040 --> 0:14:04.680 for a little good press. For a while, Hopper jumped 0:14:04.679 --> 0:14:06.720 from job to job, just trying to make a living 0:14:06.840 --> 0:14:10.280 and support herself and her son. In nineteen thirty two, 0:14:10.480 --> 0:14:12.720 she made a move into a new arena, and that 0:14:12.840 --> 0:14:16.520 was politics. She ran for Los Angeles City Council that year. 0:14:17.160 --> 0:14:20.720 She did not win, but she did remain politically interested, 0:14:20.840 --> 0:14:23.480 and sometimes that interest became part of her columns. We're 0:14:23.480 --> 0:14:25.880 going to talk about that a lot more in a minute. 0:14:25.960 --> 0:14:29.040 After foundering for a bit, Heda got a radio agent 0:14:29.120 --> 0:14:31.840 and they worked on getting a show together. But her 0:14:31.880 --> 0:14:35.120 first effort was bad. She wasn't used to being on 0:14:35.240 --> 0:14:37.920 mike rather than on a stage, and she ended up 0:14:38.040 --> 0:14:42.080 using an affected British sounding accent. But she worked on 0:14:42.120 --> 0:14:44.360 it and in nineteen thirty six had us started a 0:14:44.480 --> 0:14:47.360 radio show, The Head of Hopper Show, which was a 0:14:47.400 --> 0:14:52.960 short form gossip program. Mostly she cataloged Hollywood divorces and weddings, 0:14:53.040 --> 0:14:57.080 using her connections in the industry for insider information. Luella 0:14:57.200 --> 0:15:01.120 Parson's show A Hollywood Hotel had debuted two years earlier, 0:15:02.080 --> 0:15:04.680 and based on the head of Hopper Show, Heda was 0:15:04.720 --> 0:15:08.480 offered a column by the Esquire syndicate. They specifically wanted 0:15:08.520 --> 0:15:11.480 a gossip column to compete with the one written by 0:15:11.560 --> 0:15:15.880 Lluella Parsons. Hedda couldn't type, but she could dictate, and 0:15:16.000 --> 0:15:19.440 soon her column, HEADA Hopper's Hollywood, was running in more 0:15:19.480 --> 0:15:23.400 than a dozen papers. She soon was writing seven columns 0:15:23.440 --> 0:15:26.960 a week and still doing her radio show. She got 0:15:27.000 --> 0:15:29.840 busy and successful enough to move her work out of 0:15:29.840 --> 0:15:32.800 her house to an office on Hollywood Boulevard. She kept 0:15:32.800 --> 0:15:34.960 that office, I think for the rest of her life. 0:15:35.120 --> 0:15:38.160 She listed her number and address so people could drop 0:15:38.160 --> 0:15:40.200 in or call if they had a hot tip or 0:15:40.200 --> 0:15:43.920 any inside information, and they did, and she shared it 0:15:44.000 --> 0:15:47.520 all without fact checking, later saying she didn't know anything 0:15:47.600 --> 0:15:52.160 about libel laws. But her radio show was with CBS, 0:15:52.200 --> 0:15:55.000 and their legal team would actually cut her scripts before 0:15:55.280 --> 0:15:56.960 she went on the air. They would review it and 0:15:57.120 --> 0:15:59.640 edit them if they thought something was unverifiable or could 0:15:59.640 --> 0:16:01.840 get them trouble. But she kind of found a way 0:16:01.880 --> 0:16:05.160 to work around that. Problem by using her delivery to 0:16:05.440 --> 0:16:08.560 suggest when she was hinting at something salacious, even if 0:16:08.560 --> 0:16:12.880 she couldn't say it. Hetta's work was, as we mentioned, 0:16:13.080 --> 0:16:15.960 not known for fact checking. The New York Times wrote 0:16:16.000 --> 0:16:18.640 of her after her death, quote, Ordinarily, there was a 0:16:18.680 --> 0:16:22.440 fake quality to miss Hopper's columns, tracing perhaps to the 0:16:22.480 --> 0:16:25.040 fact that she did not like to have her staff 0:16:25.120 --> 0:16:28.480 tamper with her dictated output, and to the fact that 0:16:28.520 --> 0:16:31.880 she did not always check out her information. The result 0:16:31.960 --> 0:16:35.120 was that she got names confused, such as Switching Shirley 0:16:35.200 --> 0:16:39.960 Temple and and Shirley and Judy Garland and Judy Canova. 0:16:40.360 --> 0:16:46.280 She sometimes misattributed pregnancies or engagements or love affairs. Uh, 0:16:46.320 --> 0:16:49.960 this gets a yikes. Yeah. I mean that's a pretty 0:16:49.960 --> 0:16:52.720 fast way for somebody to like have their phone ring 0:16:52.760 --> 0:16:55.120 and be like, I didn't know you were having an affair, 0:16:55.200 --> 0:16:57.280 to be like, what are you even talking about? That's 0:16:57.320 --> 0:16:59.800 not me, but it's in print, and people will start 0:16:59.840 --> 0:17:03.960 to believe it. That's a problem. Right. In nineteen forty, 0:17:04.040 --> 0:17:07.000 Hopper's writing had become so popular that she was able 0:17:07.040 --> 0:17:09.840 to take a more lucrative offer at the Des Moines Register. 0:17:09.880 --> 0:17:13.480 In Tribune syndicate, but they released her from it when 0:17:13.600 --> 0:17:16.480 the Chicago Tribune New York News syndicate made her a 0:17:16.520 --> 0:17:20.400 better offer. This was just after Hedda had pulled off 0:17:20.400 --> 0:17:25.040 something that seemed unthinkable. She had scooped Luella Parsons that 0:17:25.240 --> 0:17:28.400 was regarding the divorce of Jimmy Roosevelt, the President's son, 0:17:29.000 --> 0:17:31.480 And this was hot gossip because Jimmy, who worked for 0:17:31.520 --> 0:17:35.360 the Goldwyn Studio, was having an affair that precipitated that divorce. 0:17:36.000 --> 0:17:38.720 It made front page news all over the US, and 0:17:38.800 --> 0:17:42.240 it sparked a feud between Hopper and Parsons that persisted 0:17:42.320 --> 0:17:46.520 for decades. By the early nineteen forties, the column was 0:17:46.560 --> 0:17:49.960 getting so much mail from readers that Hopper needed two 0:17:49.960 --> 0:17:53.399 full time assistants to wade through it all. Hedda became 0:17:53.480 --> 0:17:57.720 an integral part of the studio star system. That system 0:17:57.800 --> 0:18:00.680 is something we've brushed up against on the show before, 0:18:00.720 --> 0:18:03.960 but we've never really talked about it in depth. Basically, 0:18:04.080 --> 0:18:07.000 being an actor in Hollywood from the nineteen twenties to 0:18:07.000 --> 0:18:10.840 the nineteen sixties usually involved going in for a screen test, 0:18:11.359 --> 0:18:14.240 and if the studio liked what it saw, that actor 0:18:14.280 --> 0:18:17.359 would be signed to a contract. The contracts were often 0:18:17.480 --> 0:18:20.119 seven years long, and during that time the actor was 0:18:20.240 --> 0:18:23.639 essentially an employee of the movie studio. They acted in 0:18:23.680 --> 0:18:26.879 the films they were assigned. They were usually held to 0:18:27.000 --> 0:18:30.800 morality clauses that were meant to curb any reckless, lascivious, 0:18:30.880 --> 0:18:35.040 or other behavior that could embarrass the studio, and in return, 0:18:35.240 --> 0:18:38.440 the studio made that actor a star. This usually meant 0:18:38.520 --> 0:18:42.639 the concoction of a false backstory and name, essentially meaning 0:18:42.640 --> 0:18:45.399 that that actor had to play a character anytime they 0:18:45.440 --> 0:18:48.480 were out in public, and part of that system was, 0:18:48.520 --> 0:18:53.960 of course, pr The studio essentially introduced these actors as stars, 0:18:54.040 --> 0:18:56.400 and gossip columns became a way to get the word 0:18:56.400 --> 0:18:59.880 out about their doings that were wholesome and image affirming. 0:19:00.640 --> 0:19:03.200 For example, Clark Gable was one of the stars who 0:19:03.200 --> 0:19:06.280 became famous in the star system. He was already famous 0:19:06.280 --> 0:19:09.840 by the time we're using this example, but it shows 0:19:09.880 --> 0:19:12.439 how this whole thing worked. In nineteen thirty eight, so 0:19:12.480 --> 0:19:14.360 that was the year Too Hot to Handle came out, 0:19:14.680 --> 0:19:17.080 and while plans were being laid for Gone with the Wind, 0:19:17.880 --> 0:19:20.960 a breezy mention of the already well known actor appeared 0:19:20.960 --> 0:19:24.199 in head of Hopper's Hollywood. It read quote Clark Gable 0:19:24.240 --> 0:19:27.119 is taking all his pals up to the rodeo in Victorville, 0:19:27.200 --> 0:19:31.480 October fourteenth, long before he knew Carol Lombard. Yuko Lomo 0:19:31.640 --> 0:19:34.880 was his old camping ground. He'd go out every night 0:19:35.000 --> 0:19:38.600 rabbit shooting with all the kids. When celebrity seekers found 0:19:38.600 --> 0:19:41.640 out about it, Clark moved on. Nice to know he's 0:19:41.680 --> 0:19:44.800 going back because the gang up there adore him. So 0:19:44.840 --> 0:19:47.440 it's basically like, isn't he the best guy ever? We 0:19:47.480 --> 0:19:51.680 all think he's amazing, which just Garner's more public favor 0:19:51.760 --> 0:19:54.040 for that actor so that when their films come out, 0:19:54.320 --> 0:19:57.680 people want to go see it. On the flip side, 0:19:57.880 --> 0:19:59.840 if a star was caught in a scandal and it 0:19:59.920 --> 0:20:02.720 was about to go to press, the studio would pay 0:20:02.760 --> 0:20:06.000 off papers or the columnists to suppress this story. There's 0:20:06.040 --> 0:20:09.400 one story about Luella Parsons where they bought a screenplay 0:20:09.440 --> 0:20:12.200 from her to suppress the story that never got made, 0:20:12.240 --> 0:20:15.000 but she basically got a big hunk of money to 0:20:15.119 --> 0:20:18.280 not talk about something she knew about an actor. This 0:20:18.400 --> 0:20:21.480 all meant that Hetta and her rival Luella Parsons were 0:20:21.520 --> 0:20:24.919 able to wield an incredible amount of power. If an 0:20:24.920 --> 0:20:27.520 actor did something that one of them didn't like, they 0:20:27.520 --> 0:20:31.359 could easily tank their careers by reporting it or even 0:20:31.480 --> 0:20:35.560 fabricating unfounded gossip in the guise of an inside tip. 0:20:36.320 --> 0:20:39.440 Actors who violated the morality clauses in their contracts were 0:20:39.520 --> 0:20:42.960 fired and left with no real recourse. In a nineteen 0:20:43.000 --> 0:20:47.000 ninety seven interview with Vanity Fair, actor Roddy McDowell noted 0:20:47.000 --> 0:20:50.320 that being mentioned positively by Hetta or Parsons was a 0:20:50.359 --> 0:20:53.800 sort of currency, and actors saved their clippings and showed 0:20:53.800 --> 0:20:57.080 them to studios, so they were a negotiating tool to 0:20:57.200 --> 0:21:01.920 prove the value of the actor. Hetta Hopper's sometimes manifested 0:21:01.960 --> 0:21:04.760 in ways that were actively harmful to the people she 0:21:04.840 --> 0:21:09.720 wrote about. Both she and Parsons could be incredibly conniving 0:21:09.880 --> 0:21:11.879 in ways that are kind of hard to stomach for 0:21:11.960 --> 0:21:16.399 anyone with scruples. Frankly, after Orson Wells had convinced Luella 0:21:16.480 --> 0:21:19.960 Parsons that his upcoming film Citizen Kane was not based 0:21:20.000 --> 0:21:23.439 on her boss William Randolph Hurst, Hetta was able to 0:21:23.440 --> 0:21:26.840 see an early screening and immediately reported to Hurst that 0:21:26.920 --> 0:21:29.760 it was obviously based on him, and that she was 0:21:29.800 --> 0:21:33.719 surprised Luella had not given him a heads up. Hurst 0:21:33.800 --> 0:21:36.520 was so angry he commanded Luella to launch a full 0:21:36.560 --> 0:21:40.520 scale attack on the film. To squash it. Parsons threatened 0:21:40.560 --> 0:21:44.240 to expose all of the secrets she knew about RKO executives, 0:21:44.280 --> 0:21:46.280 that was the studio where it was made, and that 0:21:46.359 --> 0:21:49.520 she would black out any coverage of it or Radio 0:21:49.520 --> 0:21:52.000 City Music Hall where it was set to premiere, and 0:21:52.040 --> 0:21:56.080 as a consequence that premiere was canceled. There is more 0:21:56.119 --> 0:21:58.240 to this story. There are so many ins and outs 0:21:58.280 --> 0:22:02.359 of just cruel and unkind behavior and canniming, but the 0:22:02.400 --> 0:22:06.040 short version is that citizen Kane tanked initially due to 0:22:06.080 --> 0:22:09.080 the work of Parsons at the behest of Hurst, which 0:22:09.119 --> 0:22:11.240 he started with a tip off from head of Hopper, 0:22:11.720 --> 0:22:14.159 and although HEADA Hopper did not work for her. She 0:22:14.320 --> 0:22:17.960 called the movie quote a vicious and irresponsible attack on 0:22:18.040 --> 0:22:22.560 a great man. Writing for the Australasian Journal of American 0:22:22.560 --> 0:22:26.000 Studies in two thousand and seven, Jennifer Frost described the 0:22:26.040 --> 0:22:29.639 way that Hopper used her column to blur the lines 0:22:29.680 --> 0:22:34.159 of public, private, and political. Quote gossip was understood to 0:22:34.200 --> 0:22:37.359 be private talk talk about those things which ought to 0:22:37.400 --> 0:22:42.439