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
Every Girl Should Be Married this film. According to Cary Grant's biographer Marc Eliot, Grant knew that acting on screen with Drake was a risky proposition and that the general public would be rightly speculating that she had gotten the part only because she was his girlfriend. According to an interview with gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, Drake believed if everyone thought she had gotten her breakthrough because of Grant, then they were very wrong about him and her. She further suggested that Grant had simply made it possible for them to share a creative experience with their real-life chemistry. The film turned out to be