Oona O'Neill and assistant, Harry Crocker. Crocker photographed the event for gossip columnist Louella Parsons, to whom Chaplin had given exclusive rights to publicize news of the marriage in the hopes that she would write a more positive article about it than her rival, Hedda Hopper, who strongly disliked him. The elopement received a large amount of media attention due to the 36-year age gap between O'Neill and Chaplin, and because his ex-girlfriend, Joan Barry, had filed a paternity suit against him only two weeks earlier. Although Agnes had given the union her blessing, it cemented O'Neill's estrangement from her father, who
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