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
New York City Opera Appel Room in Jazz at Lincoln Center was inaugurated with the premiere of David Hertzberg's "Sunday Morning". A work for soprano and small ensemble, it featured soprano Sarah Shafer and mezzo-soprano Kirstin Chávez. That was followed by the East Coast premiere of composer Stewart Wallace's and librettist Michael Korie's "Hopper's Wife" – a surreal, erotically-charged 90-minute 1997 chamber opera fantasy about an imagined marriage between the painter Edward Hopper and the gossip columnist Hedda Hopper. It was directed by Andreas Mitisek at Harlem Stage from April 28 through May 1, 2016, in his New York City directorial debut. Third, the