Hedda Hopper

 Hedda Hopper (May 2, 1885 – February 1, 1966)

Hopper was an American actress and gossip columnist, notorious for feuding with her arch-rival Louella Parsons. She had been a moderately successful actress of stage and screen for years before being offered the chance to write the column Hedda Hopper's Hollywood for the Los Angeles Times in 1938. In the McCarthy era she named suspected Communists. Hopper continued to write gossip to the end, her work appearing in many magazines and later on radio. Hopper had several acting roles during the latter part of her career, including brief cameo appearances as herself in the movie Sunset Boulevard (1950) and The Patsy (1964), as well as episodes of The Martha Raye Show, I Love Lucy, The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford, and The Beverly Hillbillies, starring Buddy Ebsen. Her son (and only child), William DeWolf Hopper, Jr., starred on Perry Mason, as private detective Paul Drake. Hedda Hopper died on February 1, 1966, of double pneumonia at the age of 80 in Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Hollywood. She is buried at Rose Hill Cemetery, Altoona, Pennsylvania.