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Hedda Hopper
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From All Movie Guide: The son of legendary Broadway actor DeWolfe Hopper and movie actress Hedda Hopper, William Hopper made his film debut as an infant in one of his father's films. The popular consensus is that the younger Hopper was given his first talking-picture break because of his mother's reputation as the most feared of the Hollywood gossips. Not so: Hopper was signed to his first Warner Bros. contract in 1937, a year or so before Hedda had established herself as the queen of the dirt-dishers. At first billing himself as DeWolfe Hopper Jr., Hopper languished in bit parts and walk-ons for several years. He wasn't able to graduate to better roles until the 1950s, by which time he was calling himself William Hopper.
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The photograph series of the Hedda Hopper papers spans the 1910s to the 1960s and encompasses approximately 4 linear feet. The series consists of over 2,600 photographs, including portraits, publicity shots, oversized prints, candids, and black-and-white negatives. The photographs are grouped into biography photographs and subject photographs.
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Hedda Hopper was working on her popular Hollywood gossip column when an excited red-haired young woman rushed into the office. She said that her name was Joan Barry, that she was pregnant, and that the father of her unborn child was 54-year-old millionaire movie star Charlie Chaplin. Hedda might well have whooped for joy. It was 1943. People were still titillated by the Hollywood marriage-divorce-remarriage cycle. As for documented fornication, that was hot stuff.
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While in the Hopper company, she realized that chorus and understudy jobs were not acting. She wanted to act, and she knew she would have to prove herself before she could hope to get anywhere in the theatre. Hearing that Edgar Selwyn was casting his play The Country Boy for a road tour, she went to his office and talked him into letting her audition for the lead. She was given the role and the show toured for thirty-five weeks through forty-eight states.
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The young Hopper did not enjoy acting as his mother and father had, yet he stuck with the profession, moving to Warner Bros. in 1937. In the late 1930s, he briefly moved out of bit parts and had a couple of starring roles in such Warner Bros. second features as Over the Goal (1937; with June Travis) and Mystery House (1938; with Ann Sheridan). However, Hopper's lack of enthusiasm for the profession relegated him once again to bit parts soon after. He married actress Jane Gilbert in 1940, whom he met when each had a bit role in the Warner Bros.
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Mammoth Pictures is in danger of getting torn down, but Hedda Hopper wants to save it. She shows Jed the legacy of the stars of the studio, who all stuck their handprints in cement for the Walk Of Fame. After a misunderstanding, he works to fill the prints with wet cement. When they are stopped from doing that, they decide to make a picture of their own. They film on the Western street and end up making a silent movie starring the Clampetts and Drysdale and Jane. After Hopper sees the picture, she rushes out of the theatre – to tear down the studio herself.
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Hedda Hopper