"From Under My Hat" (1952) by Hedda Hopper

After John Barrymore had married Elaine Barrie, and I had become a Hollywood columnist, Mitch Leisen gave me a call to come to Paramount and be a member of his gang—Claudette Colbert, Jack Barrymore, Don Ameche, Elaine Barrie, and Billy Daniel—in a little opus called Midnight (1939). When I got the phone call I ran and I was there before the contract was dry. In Midnight I was a rather nice character (Stephanie) for a change. The engagement was pure joy from start to finish because of Barrymore’s fund of stories. 

Frances Marion wrote The Winning of Barbara Worth (1926), which starred Vilma Banky and Ronald Colman. As she was going into Sam Goldwyn’s office for a story conference she noticed a rugged young man dressed like a cowboy leaning against the wall of the studio building. He was talking through the open window to Sam’s secretary. He was Marion’s type, she gave him a second look, and as she went through the door even risked a third. Inside, Sam was raging. He had been failed by his minions! The cast was assembled—all except a young steel-spring type to play the cowboy. How could he get star material without paying a fortune? Sam demanded. Whom could he get anyhow? Frances said, “I can get you a young man who won’t cost much—he looks like good material to me.” “Who?” Sam demanded suspiciously. “Hold your horses, Sam. I’ll let you know in five minutes.” Frances went out and said to the secretary, “Does that young man want to act?” 

I’ve heard a dozen people claim to have discovered him. Sure he would have been found eventually. Frances just beat everyone to it. His name was Gary Cooper. Some spy at Paramount saw the preview of The Winning of Barbara Worth. When it came time to make Children of Divorce (1927), with Clara Bow, they needed such a man as Cooper. He was sent for, interviewed, interviewed, and opined that he’d sure like to take a whack at it. Director Frank Lloyd said okay. It’s one of the few instances of Sam Goldwyn letting the other fellow get ahead of him. To this day he’ll thank you not to remind him that he was caught flat-footed. Throughout the years he’s had Coop in many pictures, but it still gripes him to think he let him get away without even a struggle. During the second day’s shooting I took Coop off-set and said, “You don’t know me from Adam’s ox, but I have a son—you remind me of him. He’d feel as you do having to play a silly scene like this. But why let it scare you? It’s not a matter of life or death—only celluloid. They’ve got plenty more to put in that box. Relax, boy! Get that poker out of your spinal column.” I even took him by the shoulders and shook him. He shuddered. “I can’t. I never did things like this.” 

Relax he could not, and Frank Lloyd, the gentlest of men, began to lose his temper. Clara Bow already had lost hers. I liked Cooper from the start, and said to Frank, “Look. There’s only one way you’ll ever get that guy through this picture. Get him into a romantic clinch with Clara. She’ll relax him—she’s the only one who can.” “Okay,” said Frank. “Go to work on it—it’s your idea.” “Who, me? My business is acting.” Too often my ideas turned and bit me! Yet the idea intrigued me, so I started to work on Clara. The idea shocked her out of a year’s growth. “Me—fall in love with that gawky lout who can’t act and never will learn?” Then she yelped, “Where did they find him, anyway?” “They lassoed him on the range in Montana,” I said, “and he’s pretty hot stuff. He’s going to be a star, too, you mark my words. It rushes." Even though Gary’s acting was horrible, they detected something on the screen. What Cooper had on screen, even then, was an inward force, a smoldering something. You felt, “Golly, if the guy ever opens up and lets go, he’ll singe the celluloid!” You still feel it in some of his scenes, but as Al Jolson might have said, “You ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.” 

The big aviation news of ’27 was Charles A. Lindbergh. After his breath-taking flight across the Atlantic, he came to Los Angeles and was given a party at the Ambassador Hotel, with Marion Davies as hostess. Marion Davies’ secretary, “Bill” Williams, happened by and yelled, “Hey! You belong inside.” I shook my head and pointed to my companions. “Bring ’em along.” I needed no more urging. The room was packed with stars, so I grabbed a small table and sat with my back to the crowd so Bill could watch the celebrities. When Charles Lindberg arrived, I put Bill in my place in the receiving line to shake the hero’s hand, and for twenty-four hours couldn’t get my son to wash his hands. I didn’t blame him; I felt the same way. When we pushed our way into the hotel lobby we learned that Lindbergh was upstairs talking to Mr. Hearst. My admiration for Lindberg has never diminished, even when he was purged by F.D.R. I believed Lindbergh, not our President.

I ecstatically phoned Frances Marion at San Simeon, where she was visiting Marion Davies and William Randolph Hearst. Living in that cradle of luxury had changed Frances’ perspective. John Gilbert had begged Greta Garbo in vain to marry him. He even had a suite of rooms arranged in his house for her. According to hearsay, the black marble bathroom set him back fifteen thousand dollars. When it was finished he showed it to her. Later he described how she put her slender, beautiful hands over her eyes and murmured, “The marble—it is too shiny—” John Gilbert said he brought in workmen with chisels, who fluted the marble to take the shine off. 

Gilbert fell in love with Garbo. It would have been hard not to do so. Lionel Barrymore, in his book We Barrymores, says she “had the true nimbus of greatness; but she was difficult to understand." Gilbert was so hurt over Garbo’s refusal to marry him that when the famous stage star Ina Claire came to town to make a picture, he began wooing her like mad almost the minute he met her. In the beginning I think the idea was to make Garbo jealous, but he misjudged the distance. I don’t believe Garbo has ever been jealous of anybody or anything in her whole life. Perhaps she was as surprised as the rest of us, therefore, when we got the news that Ina and Jack had eloped to Las Vegas.

Things started rosy for me that year of 1929. I had a contract at a good salary and was making money in the stock market. I heard the shocking news over the radio before receiving a telephone call from my broker, Eliot Gibbons, who said, “It’s a washout, Hedda—everything’s gone. You haven’t a penny. I’m sorry. If it’s any consolation, the boat you’re in is crowded.” It was no consolation. Then I did something I haven’t been able to explain. I walked to the bookshelves, found my Oxford Book of English Verse, went to my bedroom, locked the door, sat down, thumbed through the pages till I came to Ode to a Skylark by Percy Bysshe Shelley and read it straight through.

Marion Davies was on the line. “Will you come up to Wyntoon for a visit?” I said, “Thank you, Marion, I will.” Hours later I was on the train. Mr. Hearst’s mother had built Wyntoon, which looked for all the world like a castle on the Rhine. It took shelter under the long shadow of Mount Shasta, and rising behind the house was a virgin forest of pine trees. The air had a special elixir, born in the bluish folds of snow-capped peaks. Marion took the girls shopping at I. Magnin’s, and before she finished all six of us had new coats, dresses, hats, shoes, gloves, and bags. Marion loved to shop for her friends. Soon after we reached home, Wyntoon had burned down. A watchman had been left to guard things. Maybe a cigarette had fallen in the wrong place. 

I had a hunch that shenanigans like these put Dick Powell off Marion's company as much as her long romance with WR Hearst. Although I wasn't exactly bosom buddies with Powell, due to his allegiance to Louella, I knew enough about him through Marion's confidences. She talked of him in very lofty terms, saying he was an old-fashioned gentleman and a sweet young actor. I think they had a flickering, secret relationship that lasted until 1935; one of those hurried romances that Marion was so fond of having like her champagne parties. 

Eight weeks after my column started, Ida Koverman, then assistant to Mr. Big Louis B. Mayer, gave a hen party for me, which meant she was putting her stamp of approval on my new activity. She invited every female in town—Norma Shearer, Jeanette MacDonald, Rosa Ponselle, Claudette Colbert, Joan Crawford, Sophie Tucker—they all came. All but one exception—Louella Parsons. At Paramount Studios, Marlene Dietrich, Claudette Colbert, Carole Lombard, Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer and Kay Francis competed for parts as sophisticated women.

When Joan Crawford turned out what I thought was her best performance in Mildred Pierce, I was the first to write that she should be rewarded with an Oscar. I knew about Joan’s early life—her ambitions, loves, disappointments. Many lesser actresses, who hadn’t given half her service, had received Academy Awards. I don’t say my plugging got her the Oscar, but it certainly didn’t hurt her. First news she made after winning was her divorce from Phil Terry. Louella got the story exclusively. Later I heard that Joan had said, “After all, Hedda’s my friend. She’ll understand.” I didn’t. We’ve since made up, but I never will understand why friendship isn’t a two-way street.

Sometimes, in my eagerness to help, I went too far. Joan Blondell needed a job when I happened to see her standing beside Benny Thau, a top MGM executive, at a cocktail bar one evening. I didn’t hesitate to put the bite on Thau. “Why don’t you give that sassy part in Clark Gable’s picture Adventure to Joan?” I asked. “She’s perfect for it.” He’d think about it, said Benny. The following morning he called me: “You sure put me on the spot last night. But I thought you’d be glad to know you got results. I’ve given Joan the part. If you hadn’t mentioned it before her, I never would have thought of her.” Joan Blondell, no introvert, when she came to Hollywood after a stopover in Las Vegas, she came by my house. Naturally we got on the subject of gambling. 

Joan said she’d never cared much about betting. Years ago while she was in Las Vegas with some friends who were losing their shirts she wandered from table to table, just to watch. An employee at a crap table said, “Come on, try a couple of throws. Risk ten bucks. It won’t hurt you.” She wound up losing over seven hundred dollars. She also lost his marriage to crooner and industry maverick Dick Powell. I knew Joan had a crush on Clark Gable, whose reign as "The King of Hollywood" had ended in 1942, after having enlisted in the air force. When Joan Blondell made Adventure (which was released December 28, 1945), she had already applied for divorce from Powell, so it was a sure bet she would finally have her "adventure" with Gable. The film earned a profit for MGM of $478,000 (more than $6 million worldwide according to studio records), but Adventure was a sound critical failure. 

Jimmy Stewart attracted my attention at the first reading. When it was over, I tracked him outside and said, “Why aren’t you in Hollywood?” “For what?” he said. “Pictures, of course.” He laughed in that usual embarrassed way of his, saying ruefully, “Waal, what would they do with this puss of mine? It’s no Arrow-collar ad.” I said: “You’re an actor. They could fix the rest. Pictures need a young actor with sincerity. I believe you’d do well.” Jimmy laughed it off. The play Divided by Three, with Judith Anderson and Jimmy Stewart, was produced by Guthrie MeClintic and had its rehearsals in New Haven. It was evident during rehearsals that Jimmy’s acting would get the sympathy of the audience and he’d steal the notices. So Guthrie came up with something. At the end of act two the action called for Jimmy to bring his fiancée home to meet his parents and the family’s best friend. Jimmy was to learn that the friend was his mother’s lover. 

Jimmy fell apart. He begged to be let out of the play. “I can’t do that, Mr. McClintic,” he said. “Under no circumstances could I bring myself to call any woman that—and my mother, never! Especially with the girl I love standing beside me.” “Try it out anyway at the dress rehearsal, Jimmy,” McClintic said soothingly. I remember that opening night in New York between the second and third acts when George Kaufman paced up nervously. I arranged for a fifteen-minute excerpt from the play to be put on NBC, thinking it might give it a boost. The stage manager obtained Miss Judith Anderson’s consent and delivered it to the Algonquin Hotel where Jimmy Stewart and I waited. All the curves were thrown in Divided by Three, written by Peggy Pulitzer (born Margaret Leech, married to wealthy Ralph Pulitzer).  It was a cinch the line would be at opening night in New York. That one line [you are a bitch!] killed Jimmy Stewart’s chances for success onstage. While the play itself wasn’t good, its chances were finished by that additional line. —Source: "From Under My Hat" (1952) by Hedda Hopper