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But Louella's chagrin runs deeper than that. Hedda keeps chipping away, and is distinctly too ubiquitous for Louella's tastes. While Lollipop is still the acknowledged queen of Warners, Columbia and 20th Century-Fox, which employs her husband, Urologist Harry (Docky-Wocky) Martin, Hedda is well set up everywhere else. She gets news of Paramount from Metro, and Metro from Paramount. Then there are her myriad personal contacts outside the high command. Hedda is the only columnist in town who can get the elusive Bing Crosby on the phone day or night. The monopoly on Hollywood gossip has slipped from Louella's control.
Son Bill is the biggest fact in Hedda Hopper's life. When he grew up, Hedda was determined that he should enter into the social life of Hollywood in the same way she did. She could not understand why he did not step right up to people and shine.
Bill, a tall, handsome boy who looks like his father, made his movie debut (billed as DeWolf Hopper Jr.) in 1937, and his last picture in 1943, just before going into the Coast Guard. He was never really a success, for obvious reasons: he did not want to be a movie star. After the war he kicked over the traces. He began selling automobiles. He married and acquired a son. His mother, with heroic lack of understanding, offered to back him in a Mercury dealership of his own. Bill is currently jobless. Hedda still insists on buying his suits for him.
Next to her son and grandson, Hedda's greatest interest is her hats. She buys about 150 new ones every year. She estimates that she spends at least $5,000 a year on hats. Currently, Hedda's hats are on tour of the country's leading department stores, and drawing record crowds everywhere. Her syndicate is working on a plan to use a new picture of Hedda at the top of her column every day. She will wear a new hat in each picture. Dema thinks the commercial possibilities are endless.
Recently Hedda has discovered the grass roots. Last week she, Spec McClure and Treva Davidson set out, in Hedda's 1940 Cadillac coupé, on a barnstorming tour of the U.S. Hedda wants to meet the people. The party will drive, Hedda dictating her column to Treva as they zip along. Hedda will pop in unawares on small-town newspaper editors and city fathers and "introduce myself, by God! I want to mingle with the crowd, and I'll do it if it kills me." The trip, of course, will be no vacation. But then, Hedda never takes one anyway. She once explained why. "Dear," she snapped, "I'm too much of a ham not to want to pick up the paper tomorrow morning and find out what Hedda Hopper has to say."