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
Joyce Haber Joyce Haber Joyce Haber (1931–1993) was an American gossip columnist who worked for the "Los Angeles Times". Haber was one of Hollywood's last powerful gossip columnists who "were capable of canonizing a film or destroying a star". She took over the old job of famed Hedda Hopper. Haber left the "Times" in 1976 to write a roman a clef titled "The Users". It was her only novel, rose to the top of the New York Times Bestseller List, and was made into a tele-film with the same name. Haber was instrumental in an FBI black-op that directly led to the