Gossip columnist 1930s through the 1950s, the two best-known - and competing - Hollywood gossip columnists were Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons. Well-timed leaks about a star's purported romantic adventures helped the studios to create and sustain the public's interest in the studios' star actors. As well, the movie studios' publicity agents acted as unnamed "well-informed inside sources" who provided misinformation and rumors to counteract whispers about celebrity secrets — such as homosexuality or an out-of-wedlock child — that could have severely damaged not only the reputation of the movie star in question, but the movie star's box office viability. Having fallen
Julie Wilson the Miss America pageant, until it was discovered that she was just under the required minimum age of 18. She headed to New York City during World War II and found work in two of Manhattan's leading nightclubs, the Latin Quarter and the Copacabana. Gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, in a 1948 newspaper column, referred to Wilson as "Kay Thompson's discovery," adding that Wilson "is being tested by Arthur Freed at Metro." She made her Broadway stage debut in the 1946 revue "Three to Make Ready". In 1951, she moved to London to star in the West End production of "Kiss