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Dec 2023
35m 18s

Hedda Hopper

iHeartPodcasts
About this episode

Though she started out acting, what really made Hedda Hopper famous was her work in newspapers. For several decades, she could make or break a movie career with her gossip column, sending statements to print regardless of whether there was any actual proof of what she claimed.

Research: 

  • Collins, Amy Fine. “The Powerful Rivalry of Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons.” Vanity Fair. April 1997. https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/02/rivalry-hedda-hopper-louella-parsons-gossip-columnists
  • Eells, George. “Hedda and Louella.” W.H. Allen. Virgin Books. 1972.
  • Ephron, Nora. “Hedda and Louella.” New York Times. April 23, 1972. https://www.nytimes.com/1972/04/23/archives/hedda-and-louella-by-george-eells-illustrated-360-pp-new-york-g-p-p.html
  • FROST, JENNIFER. “‘GOOD RIDDANCE TO BAD COMPANY’: HEDDA HOPPER, HOLLYWOOD GOSSIP, AND THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST CHARLIE CHAPLIN, 1940-1952.” Australasian Journal of American Studies, vol. 26, no. 2, 2007, pp. 74–88. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41054077
  • “Hedda Hopper, Columnist, Dies; Chronicled Gossip of Hollywood.” New York Times. Feb. 2, 1966. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1966/02/02/79310265.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
  • “Hollywood’s Godmother to Give Views on Past, Present, Future.” The Tampa Tribune. Jan. 10, 1960. https://www.newspapers.com/image/329731973/?terms=hedda%20hopper&match=1
  • Hopper, Hedda. “Hedda Hopper’s Hollywood.” The Shreveport Journal. October 4, 1938. https://www.newspapers.com/image/600365053/?terms=hedda%20hopper&match=1
  • Peak, Mamie Ober. “Social Butterfly of Screen a Different Person at Home.” Hartford Courant. Jan 10, 1932. https://www.newspapers.com/image/369469825/?terms=hedda%20hopper&match=1
  • Sbardellati, John and Tony Shaw. “Booting a Tramp: Charlie Chaplin, the FBI, and the Construction of the Subversive Image in Red Scare America.” The Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 72, No. 4 (Nov., 2003), pp. 495-530. University of California Press. https://web.viu.ca/davies/H323Vietnam/CharlieChaplin.McCarthyism.pdf
  • “William Randolph Hearst’s Campaign to Suppress Citizen Kane.” American Experience. PBS. April 30, 2021. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/kane-william-randolph-hearst-campaign-suppress-citizen-kane/

 

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