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
Isabel Jewell FBI". In 1972, Jewell appeared opposite Edie Sedgwick in the film "Ciao! Manhattan". Her final film was the B movie "Sweet Kill" (1973), the directorial debut of Curtis Hanson, a future Academy Award winner. Jewell's first marriage (which "was not generally known during Jewell's lifetime ... [nor] mentioned in the press during her heyday in American films") occurred when she wed Lovell "Cowboy" Underwood when she was 19. In the mid to late 1930s, Jewell was seen at nightclubs with actor William Hopper. (He appeared on the "Perry Mason" TV series and was the son of gossip columnist Hedda Hopper