Hedda Hopper column, entitled "Hedda Hopper's Hollywood", debuted on February 14 (St. Valentine's Day), 1938. Hopper could not type, or spell very well, so she dictated her column to a typist over the phone. Initially facing stiff competition against Louella Parsons, who had a monopoly on Hollywood gossip, Hopper used her extensive contacts forged during her acting days to gather material for her column. 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. Part of
William Hickey (columnist) William Hickey (columnist) "William Hickey" is the pseudonymous byline of a gossip column published in the "Daily Express", a British newspaper. It was named after the eighteenth-century diarist William Hickey. The column was first established by Tom Driberg in May 1933. An existing gossip column was relaunched following the intervention of the "Express"'s proprietor Lord Beaverbrook. It was titled "These Names Make News". Driberg described the new feature as "...an intimate biographical column about ... men and women who matter. Artists, statesmen, airmen, writers, financiers, explorers..." Historian David Kynaston calls Driberg the "founder of the modern gossip column", which moved