Hedda Hopper

She changed her published birthdate from May 2, 1885 to June 2, 1890 in order to conceal her actual age.

Her father was a butcher. In 1913 she met and married matinée idol DeWolf Hopper Sr..

and in 1915 they moved to Hollywood, where both began active film careers. He became a star with Triangle Company, she began in vamp parts and turned to supporting roles. After her divorce she appeared in dozens of films, becoming known as "Queen of the Quickies".

First worked as a silent film actress for Samuel Goldwyn's film company under dismal conditions in Fort Lee, New Jersey, probably around 1917. The dressing rooms and offices were in an abandoned barn with thin wooden partitions and no ceilings.

She left Pennsylvania for New York with theatrical stars in her eyes and met and married actor De Wolfe Hopper. In 1920 she moved to Hollywood with her son to work in films. In 1936 she started a show business gossip radio programe and two years later began her film column which became syndicated in 100's of American newspapers.

Filed for divorce from Hopper in New York, July 1923. Granted her interlocutory decree and custody of son, Billy, on January 30, 1924.

She died on the same day as Buster Keaton, her co-star in The Stolen Jools (1931), Speak Easily (1932) and Sunset Boulevard (1950).

In 1936 she started a gossipy radio show and two years later commenced a 28-year stint as a newspaper gossip columnist, rival of Louella Parsons. In her last films she mostly played herself, a tribute to her influence in Hollywood.

Hedda's political allies/sources in the 1940s and 1950s included such heavyweights in right-wing circles as Sen. Joseph McCarthy, Howard Hughes, Ronald Reagan, J. Edgar Hoover and William Randolph Hearst. She had unlimited sources of "dirt" on the entertainment industry through her relationship with Hoover, the longtime director of the FBI; she tried to have Citizen Kane (1941) pulled from release because of her friendship with Hearst (the film was a thinly disguised biography of Hearst); she aided McCarthy in outing "liberal" actors; she helped jump-start Reagan into politics; and she refused to board a plane unless Hughes personally inspected it.

Her gossip column had a rich assortment of attacks on several film stars of the day. In particular, Joan Bennett was Hopper's No. 1 subject of disdain. In response, Bennett mailed Hopper a skunk as a Valentine's Day gift in 1950 with a note that read, "You Stink!".

In 1964, was sued by Michael Wilding for $3 million over implications in her book "The Whole Truth and Nothing But the Truth" that Wilding was a homosexual. The suit was eventually settled for $100,000.

A dual biography of Hopper and Louella Parsons, "Hedda and Louella," by George Eells was published as a mass market paperback by Warner Books in 1972.

The Equitable Building at Hollywood and Vine where Hedda Hopper had an office is shown in Hollywood Mouth (2008). Another Hopper office was in the Guaranty Building at Hollywood Blvd. and Ivar, which is shown in Hollywood Mouth 2 (2014). The director of those films, Jordan Mohr, had played Simone Signoret in the stage play "Two Simones: de Beauvoir and Signoret in Hollywood" in which Signoret talked about her appearance with Hopper on Edward R. Murrow's Small World (1958)--the two women were political opposites--and how Hopper's newspaper column announcing the Oscar nominees left out Signoret's name (she won for Room at the Top (1959)).

She was portrayed by Judy Davis in the FX original series, Feud: Bette and Joan (2017).