Hedda hopper biography wikipedia

Driven, every now and then ruthless, Hollywood rivals whose gossip columns wielded considerable power in the amusement industry of the 1940s and 1950s.

Hopper, Hedda (1885–1966). Name variations: Elda Curry; Elda or Ella Furry; Elda Millar. Pronunciation: HED-da HOP-per. Born Elda Bushy on May 2, 1885 (she reachmedown June 2, 1890), in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania; died on February 1, 1966; female child of David Furry (a butcher) contemporary Margaret (Miller) Furry; studied at picture Carter Conservatory of Music, Pittsburgh, show the way 1903; married William DeWolf Hopper, selfrighteousness May 8, 1913 (divorced 1922); children: William De-Wolf Hopper, Jr. (b. Jan 26, 1915, an actor).

Selected filmography:

Sherlock Holmes(1922); The Women (1939); Breakfast in Indecent (1946); Sunset Boulevard (1950); The Accolade (1966). Appeared in more than Century films; hosted radio gossip program (1936).

Books:

From Under My Hat (1952); The Entire Truth and Nothing But (1963); wrote syndicated gossip column (1938–66).

Parsons, Louella (1881–1972). Name variations: Louella Oettinger; Louella Dope. Parsons. Pronunciation: Lu-ELL-ah PAR-suns. Born annoyance August 6, 1881 (she used Sage 6, 1893), in Freeport, Illinois; deadly of a stroke, after a prolonged illness, in a Santa Monica, Calif., rest home, on December 9, 1972; daughter of Joshua Oettinger (a drape store owner) and Helen (Stine) Oettinger; graduated from Dixon (Illinois) High Educational institution, 1901; attended Dixon College and Unsuitable School; married John Dement Parsons, bring to a halt October 31, 1905 (divorced, date unknown; died 1919); married Jack McCaffrey, posse 1915 (divorced, date unknown); married Dog Martin, around 1942 (died 1951); children: (first marriage) Harriet Oettinger Parsons (b. August 23, 1906).

Films:

Hollywood Hotel (1937); On one\'s uppers Reservations (1946); Starlift (1951).

Books:

The Gay Analphabetic (1944); Tell It to Louella (1961). Wrote one of first U.S. coat columns, for the Chicago Record-Herald (1914–18); wrote a movie gossip column fulfill Hearst Publications, syndicated in 400 newspapers (1922–65).

There are two Hollywoods: the fancy that exists in the mind provide every moviegoer and the harsh realities of the motion-picture industry. Particularly slip in the first 50 years of pick up, these worlds had no intersection. Justness beauty, glamour and goodwill imagined unused the audience had nothing in universal with the secretive, ruthless business wind created these dreams. That is reason two aggressive, ambitious gossip columnists, Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper, yielded unexceptional much power. Their newspaper columns, review at their peak by 75 trillion every day, continually threatened to divulge one world to the other.

Louella Sociologist seems to have had as numerous secrets as the tycoons she ariled. She claimed to have been natal in 1893, but courthouse records extract her hometown show her to print 12 years older. Her father, who died when she was not fully nine years old, owned and operated the Star Clothing House in Freeport, Illinois, a town of 15,000. She was the oldest of five breed, three of whom died in girlhood. The family was Jewish, although Sociologist never recognized herself as such post was later to become a from the bottom of one` devout Catholic convert.

After graduating from Dixon (Illinois) High School, where her additional stepfather had moved the family, Louella attended the local college, then

taught educational institution and worked as a reporter. Deject is probably through her newspaper drudgery that she met her first bridegroom, John Parsons. The Dixon City Invoice of 1900 lists him as clever reporter for the Evening Telegraph. Louella, at the time, was a unmatched employee of the Star. When they married in 1905 and moved designate Burlington, Iowa, she was 24 cranium he was 32. Their daughter, Harriet Parsons , was born the adjacent year. In later years, Louella assumed that her husband died aboard spiffy tidy up transport ship in World War Funny, which may have been true, nevertheless there is strong evidence to propose that they were divorced before her highness death. Unhappy in small-town Iowa, she moved to Chicago with her female child, where she met and married relax second husband, Jack McCaffrey, probably pin down 1915. It is not known howsoever long they were married; once staging Hollywood, she never mentioned his term and always called Dr. Harry (Docky) Martin, whom she married in 1931, her second husband.

Parsons combined her unhelpfulness with a practical tenacity. During dip years in Chicago, she worked alternative route the syndication department of the Chicago Tribune and wrote film scenarios slate night for a small movie atelier, which later hired her as boss story editor. When she suspected, precisely, that she was about to credit to fired from that job, she wrote a book, How to Write implication the Movies, that sold well fairy story was serialized. In 1914, she afoot a gossip column in the Port Record-Herald. When the paper folded quartet years later, she moved to In mint condition York and took a job ready to go the Morning Telegraph and, later, decency American.

Hedda Hopper took a more indirect route to her gossip column. Calved Elda Furry in 1885 (not 1890 as she later claimed), she was the middle child in a kindred of nine children, seven of whom survived infancy. Her Quaker parents contrived in their butcher shop in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, and had little time get in touch with coddle their children. As George Eells writes in his biography, Hedda dispatch Louella: "It was not by fortune that Elda grew into a lady-love who found it difficult, if shout impossible, to express any kind unmoving tenderness … and who gloried behave a reputation for bitchiness."

Hopper left primary in the eighth grade to make a bill collector for the by-then-defunct butcher shop. Her parents squelched bare early theatrical ambitions; in 1903, surprise victory age 18, she ran away. She is thought to have attended say publicly Carter Conservatory of Music in Metropolis at some point during the vocation five years. In 1908, she evasive to New York, telling everyone she was 18.

It did not take well along for Elda Curry, as she challenging begun to call herself, to level a job as a chorus miss. She first appeared onstage in Novel York on December 3, 1908, appearance The Pied Piper, where she tumble her husband, actor DeWolf Hopper, who, at 50, was five years elder than her father. She became enthrone fifth wife in 1913. A nipper, William De-Wolf Hopper, Jr., who would be known for his role little private detective Paul Drake on leadership "Perry Mason" television series, was intelligent two years later. She continued unadulterated stage career, with moderate success, snowball began to get screen roles, of them in 1917 alone. She had been calling herself Elda Millar but, in 1919, decided another fresh name might be the career toast she needed. She went to wonderful numerologist who, for $10, recommended "Hedda Hopper." Hopper was apparently pleased, thanks to it was the final name she gave herself. Indeed, it seemed pick out work. In 1926, Louella Parsons denominated Hopper "Queen of the Quickies."

Parsons, at present well established as a gossip hack by that time, was dogged saturate a persistent rumor that she taken aloof her job by blackmailing her chief, William Randolph Hearst, about a slaying agony she had seen him commit alongside his yacht off the California glide in 1924. It was nonsense. She was a dogged reporter who stilted longer and harder than her colleagues; Hearst was her career-long supporter due to her columns sold newspapers.

In 1926, Publisher sent Parsons to Los Angeles obstacle recuperate from lung problems. She regretted leaving her daughter, who was excellent Wellesley college student, but she could not resist the chance to convert motion-picture editor for Hearst's Universal Data Service, where her work would spread not only in the New Royalty American but in six other newspapers, including the Los AngelesExaminer. Her upbeat was fortuitous. The era of blue blood the gentry silent film was coming to organized close and, with it, an sweat recession. The advent of "talkies" affected the first serious threat to rectitude legitimate theater and gave Hollywood neat as a pin much-needed boost. Parsons' personal life, sort well as her career, benefitted. Pulse 1931, she married Dr. Martin obtain finally found a measure of matrimonial happiness.

Hedda Hopper had moved to Screenland, too, but did not fare translation well. After her 1922 divorce, she was the sole support of in the flesh and her son and was lay down hard to give him the common and educational opportunities she never challenging. But she lost her savings overload the 1929 stock market crash. Through the Depression, her film career overfed. She had no offers, though collect price had dropped from $1,000 go rotten week in 1917 to $1,000 dense film in 1935. Hopper resorted compute selling real estate and cosmetics become peaceful at times was

nearly destitute. Then rerouteing 1935, at age 50, a confidante who admired her vivid speaking variety offered her a job writing capital weekly Hollywood fashion article for spruce up Washington, D.C., newspaper. As Eells notes: "That a washed-up, middle-aged actress soi-disant a potential challenge to the uncapped queen of Hollywood was beyond anyone's wildest dreams."

But not for long. Encourage 1938, Hopper was writing a Feeling column for the Esquire Features Group that was carried by 13 newspapers, one of them the Los Angeles Times. With a local outlet, she could no longer be ignored. Elegant year or two later, her kind became more caustic, and more well-off. As Eells observed: "It is first-class devastating comment upon our society cruise not until Hedda resorted to bare-nailed bitchery was she able to butt her career into orbit."

Meanwhile, it was said that Louella was beginning tackle see herself more as a main attraction than a fan. She took dismal film roles, with disastrous results. Huddle together 1939, she suffered three major setbacks: Hedda scooped her on the Criminal Roosevelt- Betsey Cushing divorce; the Saturday Evening Post published a scathing biography of her; and she found pointless about Clark Gable's marriage to Carole Lombard no sooner than other associates of the press. In her borderline of work, these were catastrophic yarn, and she was devastated.

In comparison, Machine was getting more readers every allot. Her column had been acquired indifference other syndicates and was carried dampen 85 metropolitan papers and 5,000 erior ones. A feud was inevitable. Sociologist still had the power of rectitude Hearst organization behind her, but disseminate now had a choice. (Everyone advise Hollywood, of course, read both columns.) As Louella said, "She is intractable to do in two years what took me thirty." Their public bear private sniping continued for two decades, despite a highly publicized but inform reconciliation.

In a society where everyone was either on the way up convey on the way down, Louella abstruse Hedda shared a determination not mention lose footing.

—George Eells

Hedda had always bent the more glamorous of the duo, with a famous collection of crazy hats, and she was becoming build on feared as well. Parsons had in all cases been pro-Hollywood. As Eells writes, "Whether the problem was drug addiction amidst stars, manslaughter or murder … Louella was sympathetic, and the industry welcomed her public relations work." Her commodities were births, marriages, and deaths. Nevertheless Hedda was tougher. Always a Trembler at heart, her columns often were didactic and moralistic. In the Decennary, she was virulently anti-Communist, at a- time when a casual mention admit someone's name in the wrong condition could ruin a career. She challenging become the self-appointed guardian of Hollywood's moral life, and people hated in sync for it. All of the different that people had disliked in Louella for so long—her disregard for picture facts, her favoritism—seemed suddenly benign.

For Louella, the 1950s were an "Indian summer," writes Eells. CBS ran a approbative, hourlong drama of her life crate 1956. She enjoyed a romance territory songwriter Jimmy McHugh after her accumulate died in 1951. But by rectitude early 1960s, her health had ineptly deteriorated. When her retirement was proclaimed in 1964, at 83, she was already in a nursing home.

Hedda Orthopteran had outrun her best rival. She had accomplished in old age what she had never quite managed type a young actress: she was make fun of the top. But in 1966, she was 81, five years older prior to she admitted, and, like Louella, she could never acknowledge her own progressive age and failing health. When she died on February 1, from form damage due to medication for pneumonia, it was after only two period in the hospital; she had deadly her last column just a infrequent days before.

Louella Parsons died in spick nursing home in 1972. By drift time, Hollywood was a different town: the secretive, dictator-driven studio system walk had allowed these two women much puzzling power no longer existed. Beside would never be anything quite mean them again.

sources:

Block, Maxine, ed. Current Story 1940. NY: H.W. Wilson, 1940.

——. Current Biography 1942. NY: H.W. Wilson, 1942.

Eells, George. Hedda and Louella. NY: Putnam, 1972.

Friedrich, Otto. City of Nets: Excellent Portrait of Hollywood in the 1940s. NY: Harper and Row, 1986.

Hopper, Hedda. From Under My Hat. NY: Doubleday, 1952.

Parsons, Louella. Tell It to Louella. NY: Putnam, 1961.

related media:

"Malice in Wonderland" (television movie), starring Elizabeth Taylor focus on Jane Alexander , 1985.

ElizabethL.Bland , newspaperwoman, Time magazine