Malice in Wonderland (1985 film) Malice in Wonderland (1985 film) Malice in Wonderland is a 1985 American made-for-television biographical film based on the 1972 novel "Hedda and Louella: A Dual Biography of Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons" by George Eells. Starring Elizabeth Taylor and Jane Alexander, it tells the based-on-real-life stories of powerful Hollywood gossip columnists Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons, once friends and later rivals. The film premiered on CBS on 12 May 1985. The film was a ratings success gaining an 18.3 rating equaling to 15,536,700 households tuning in its original air date. "Malice in Wonderland" was released on Region 1 DVD on
Hedda Hopper Hopper's public image was her fondness for wearing extravagant hats, for which the Internal Revenue Service gave her a $5,000 annual tax credit as a work expense. During the Second World War, the Nazis used photographs of Hopper in her extravagant hats for propaganda, as a symbol of "American decadence". She made a $250,000 annual salary, which enabled her to live an extravagant lifestyle and maintain a mansion in Beverly Hills, which she described as "the house that fear built". After Hopper printed a story about an extramarital affair between Joseph Cotten and Deanna Durbin, Cotten ran into Hopper at