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
Hedda Hopper actor Sidney Poitier. While interviewing him, she asked if he could sing, because "so many of your people do". When he replied that he could not, she said: You're the first one I've ever met who says he can't sing. I've never known any of your people who couldn't sing. In 1963, Hopper complained in her column that three out of five Best Actor Oscar nominees were British and only two were American: The weather's so foul on that tight little isle that, to get in out of the rain, they all gather in theatres and practise Hamlet on each