Citizen Kane "Stage" magazine compared the film's narrative to "Faust" and made no mention of Hearst. The film was scheduled to premiere at RKO's flagship theater Radio City Music Hall on February 14, but in early January 1941 Welles was not finished with post-production work and told RKO that it still needed its musical score. Writers for national magazines had early deadlines and so a rough cut was previewed for a select few on January 3, 1941 for such magazines as "Life", "Look" and "Redbook". Gossip columnist Hedda Hopper (and Hollywood correspondent for Hearst papers Louella Parsons' arch rival) showed up to
Hedda Hopper Jr. recalled in his memoirs "Salad Days" that he was already in uniform serving in the United States Navy, and despised Hopper for her insinuations. Actor Kirk Douglas recounted an interaction between Hopper and Elizabeth Taylor. At the 1965 premiere of Taylor and husband Richard Burton's film "The Sandpiper", Hopper began to complain when she saw screenwriter Dalton Trumbo's screen credit (she had led the charge in blacklisting Trumbo for his Communist party membership). This led Taylor to turn around and say "Hedda, why don't you just shut the f*** up?" In 1958, Hopper made racist remarks to African American