Editing Hedda Hopper (section)

===Writing===
[[File:Hedda Hopper in the early 1920s - LCCN2014715583 (cropped).jpg|thumb|Hopper in the early 1920s]]
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 ({{Inflation|US|50|1935|fmt=eq}}), which was cancelled after four months when she refused to take a $15 pay cut.<ref name=Collins/> 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.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.physics.purdue.edu/~schneppn/hedda.html|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080705160245/http://www.physics.purdue.edu/~schneppn/hedda.html|title=Hedda Hopper Timeline|archivedate=July 5, 2008}}</ref> 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.<ref name="Vanity Fair">{{cite web |url=https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/02/rivalry-hedda-hopper-louella-parsons-gossip-columnists |title=The Powerful Rivalry of Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons |last=Collins |first=Amy Fine |website=vanityfair.com |date=April 1997 |access-date=2019-10-11}}</ref> 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]].<ref name="Collins" />

Part of Hopper's public image was her fondness for wearing extravagant hats,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Jenner |first=Greg |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=z4SQDwAAQBAJ&q=Greg+jenner |title=Dead Famous: An Unexpected History of Celebrity from Bronze Age to Silver Screen |date=2020-03-19 |publisher=Orion |isbn=978-0-297-86981-8 |pages=220 |language=en}}</ref> for which the [[Internal Revenue Service]] allowed her a $5,000 annual tax deduction as a work expense.<ref name=telegraph1/> During the Second World War, the [[Nazism|Nazis]] used photographs of Hopper in her extravagant hats for propaganda, as a symbol of "American decadence".<ref name="Lemon 1985"/> Her annual income was $250,000,{{when|date=July 2023}} enabling her to live a luxurious lifestyle and maintain a mansion in [[Beverly Hills]], which she described as "the house that fear built".<ref name=Collins/>

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 and then kick her in the rear.<ref>{{cite book|last=Silvester|first=Christopher|title=The Grove Book of Hollywood|publisher=Grove Press|year=2002|page=352|isbn=978-0-8021-3878-1}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite magazine |date=2020-05-18 |title=Old Hollywood's Most Scandalous Secrets, as Told by David Niven |url=https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020/05/david-niven-memoir-scandals-old-hollywood |access-date=2024-03-26 |magazine=Vanity Fair |language=en-US}}</ref> 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.<ref name=Collins/> Cotten later threatened Hopper that he would kick her again if she kept slandering him.<ref name=":0" />

Hopper spread rumors that [[Michael Wilding (actor)|Michael Wilding]] and [[Stewart Granger]] had a sexual relationship. Her 1962 book ''The Whole Truth and Nothing But'', which she promoted on the CBS television series ''[[What’s My Line?]]'', included a chapter in which Hopper asserted their relationship was a fact. Wilding sued Hopper for libel and won.<!-- how much money was he awarded? --><ref>{{cite book|last=Stephens|first=Autumn|title=Drama Queens: Wild Women of the Silver Screen|publisher=Conari|year=1998|page=[https://archive.org/details/dramaqueenswildw00step/page/n211 202]|isbn=978-1-57324-136-6|url=https://archive.org/details/dramaqueenswildw00step|url-access=registration}}</ref>

Hopper was an advocate for actress [[Joan Crawford]], whose career suffered in the early 1940s after she was labelled "[[Box Office Poison (magazine article)|Box-Office Poison]]" and forced to resign from [[Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer]]. In 1945, Hopper reprinted a press release for ''[[Mildred Pierce (film)|Mildred Pierce]]'' in her column, which described Crawford as a leading contender for the [[Academy Award for Best Actress|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.<ref name=Collins/>

Hopper lobbied for African American actor [[James Baskett]] to receive an [[Academy Awards|Academy Award]] for his performance in the 1946 film ''[[Song of the South]]''. Baskett would ultimately receive an honorary award for his performance.<ref name = "Frost1">{{cite journal |last=Frost |first=Frost |date= Winter 2008 |title= Hedda Hopper, Hollywood Gossip, and the Politics of Racial Representation in Film, 1946-1948 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20064255 |journal=The Journal of African American History |volume=93 |issue=1 |pages=36–63 |doi=10.1086/JAAHv93n1p36 |jstor=20064255 |s2cid=142114722 |access-date=March 23, 2023|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Actress [[ZaSu Pitts]] compared Hopper to "a ferret".<ref name="kanfer">{{cite book|last=Kanfer|first=Stefan|title=Tough Without A Gun: The Life and Extraordinary Afterlife of Humphrey Bogart|publisher=Borzoi Books (Random House)|year=2011|page=[https://archive.org/details/toughwithoutgunt00kanf/page/86 86]|isbn=978-0-307-27100-6|url=https://archive.org/details/toughwithoutgunt00kanf/page/86}}</ref> [[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.<ref name="skunk">{{cite book|last=Eells|first=George|title=Hedda and Louella|publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons|year=1972|pages=260–262}}</ref>

During World War II, Hopper's only child, actor [[William Hopper|William "Bill" Hopper]], served in the [[United States Navy|Navy]] in [[Underwater Demolition Team|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.{{clarify|date=March 2018}} 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.<ref>[[Douglas Fairbanks Jr.]] (1988). ''The Salad Days'' {{ISBN missing}}</ref>

Actor [[Kirk Douglas]] recounted an interaction between Hopper and [[Elizabeth Taylor]]. At the premiere of Taylor and her 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 caused Taylor to turn around and say "Hedda, why don't you just shut the fuck up?"<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.huffingtonpost.com/liz-smith/kirk-douglas-juicy-and-in_b_1697705.html| title=Kirk Douglas' Juicy And Informative New Memoir On How An Epic&nbsp;– And An End To Blacklisting&nbsp;– Came To Be| author=Liz Smith| work=The Huffington Post| date= 2012-07-24| access-date=2018-03-18}}</ref>

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."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Sellers |first1=Robert |title=Don't Let the Bastards Grind You Down: How One Generation of British Actors Changed the World |date=2011 |publisher=Random House |isbn=9781409049913 |page=403}}</ref>