From Under My Hat HEDDA HOPPER Rom Unaer Si Hat
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1° EARL THEISEN, LOOK PHOTO Above, De Wolf Hopper, son Bill, and nurse; Hedda Hopper with, right, John Barrymore; middle right, William Farnum in Battle of Hearts; lower right, Paulette Goddard and Ray Milland in Reap the Wild Wind; lower left, Edgar Bergen at a costume ball; left, Bette Davis Hedda Hopper with, left, Ingrid Berg- man; above left, Wendell Willkie; above, Bernard Baruch From unaerd. mj Hat Above, De Wolf Hopper and son Bill; above tigfit, Mrs. Dewey, Thomas E. Dewey, Hedda Hop- per, and Ginger Bogers; right, Rex (assistant to Fred Frederics), Hedda Hopper, and Fred Frederics Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012 with funding from Media History Digital Library http://archive.org/details/fromundermyhatOOhedd From under my Hat HEDDA HOPPER rom unaer si Hat Doublcchy & Company, Inc., Garden City, N.Y., 1952 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 52-10394 Copyright, 1952, by Hedda Hopper All Rights Reserved Printed in the United States First Edition TO MY MOTHER, WHO WAS AN ANGEL ON EARTH From under my Hat Once upon a time there was a six-toed cousin. Mine. When I first saw him, I knew I was in show business. Kids in the neighborhood couldn't afford pennies, but I made them pay five pins every time they got a look at him. At the time when my six-toed cousin and I were in business, I was Elda Furry. I was born in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, a peaceful, pretty town fourteen miles out- side the industrial city of Altoona. In the West we'd call it a suburb, although the Hollidaysburg citizens might want to hang me for using that term. I made my entrance into this world June 2 ( I'll skip the year because I don't want anyone following me around with a wheel chair) during one of the gaudiest electrical storms ever seen in the community. The heavens opened up and so did I. It is said that I came in screaming. Mother didn't rightly know which was making the most noise, but she found out soon enough. The elements quit, but I didn't. Born with good lungs, I've never stopped exercising them. Today I can outshout any producer in Hollywood. When I was three we moved to Altoona. My growing pains were done to the rhythm of hard work; I never had it easy. What school learning I got was as sketchy as my knowledge of men. I didn't make a high school, and boys didn't seem to like me much. I had only one beau in Altoona, but I won't fool you, I've had several since. When life became intolerable at home, I ran away to New York and went on the stage. There I met De Wolf Hopper. Inasmuch as I left home to escape the heritage of being a butcher's daughter, it seems ironical that I was to spend the rest of my life dealing in ham. But for De Wolf Hopper, this book would never have been written. Life with him was a liberal education. He set my feet upon the way. " From under my Hat To me Hopper was something special, something new under the sun. I had been on the stage only a few years when I joined his company. His massive size, his voice, his storytelling gift—Wolfie was a six-foot-three riot. From the moment I saw him he fascinated me. To him I was a new audience. I was as fresh as an unhatched egg. He enjoyed the attention he got from his raw recruit, went all out to give a continuous performance. I drank in his every word as though it were Holy Writ. I was in his company several seasons. We toured the country from one end to the other. I was still in the chorus, though I had gotten a little more hep by this time. Dancing came easier for me. In singing, what my voice lacked in quality it made up in volume. While I was in Wolfie's company I made the discovery that chorus and understudy jobs weren't acting. I knew I just had to act. And I'd have to go out and prove myself before I could hope to get anywhere in the theater. Hearing that Edgar Selwyn was casting his play The Country Boy for a road tour, I went to his office and asked him to give me the leading part. "Why, my girl, you're too tall!" He laughed. "The male lead is only a medium-sized man." I kicked my shoes off. I didn't know there was—a hole in my stock- ing. "Look—I'm not really so tall—it's the heels Edgar liked that, or at least it amused him. "All right, all right, " I'll try you out. Here's the part. Rehearsals start in a week Such and such a theater, such and such a time. We went touring for thirty-five weeks. Audiences gave me con- fidence, and I got the feel of acting. I loved it. I could hardly wait for the time to put on make-up for each performance—and for the applause. While I was on tour Wolfie wrote to me regularly. We toured The Country Boy through the forty-eight states. By the time I got back to New York I had made another discovery. Now it was acting which wasn't enough for me. I'd have to get into a musical, and also I'd have to be a prima donna. I studied singing all summer and in the fall went out with The 10 Quaker Girl; not as the Quaker Girl but as second lead, the prima- donna part. I saved the notices I got that year for singing. There weren't many—barely enough to fill three pages of a scrapbook— but I valued them because I knew my limitations. They were the only notices I ever kept. Rehearsals for The Quaker Girl were at the Hudson Theatre on Forty-fourth Street just off Sixth Avenue. In winter the janitor dou- bled as doorman, opening carriage doors. One day he was sweeping the sidewalk when I came out of the theater after rehearsal. He leaned on his broom, smiled kindly at me, and said, "Oh, miss, you've got the most beautiful voice I've ever listened to." I knew how wrong he was, but I needed that kind of encouragement just then. I hadn't cultivated aggressiveness and a sharp tongue yet; I did that later, turning aside approval or flattery because, having been without it so long while growing up, I never learned really to accept it—or believe it at all. Still, for years after that I'd walk blocks out of my way to greet that janitor and shake his hand. In every town we played The Quaker Girl a letter from Wolfie would be waiting for me; and how he hated to write! The people in the company were dying to know who my faithful swain was. They knew that Wolfie and I had been friendly when I was in his com- pany, but I never had mentioned him by name. Just let 'em guess. They say women can't keep a secret. Well, I did. But the strain on me was so great I've never been able to keep one since. The Quaker Girl closed in Albany. The afternoon before the last performance I went to a jewelry store on a most personal errand. "Please show me your wedding rings," I said. The jeweler looked interested. "For a lady?" "For a lady," I replied, not batting an eye. His eyebrows up, he got out the tray. "This one," I said. "How much?" He told me, adding, as he watched me out of the corner of his eye, "How shall I engrave it?" "That will be taken care of later," I said, giving him no satisfac- ii From under my Hat tion. "Just Put tne rmg ™ a box." He did, and I gave him the twenty-three dollars. It paid for itself over many years. I used to wear that ring when I played married women in movies. The curtain was rung down on our last performance, the scenery struck, and no one—not even the company manager—had the faintest idea they wouldn't be seeing me at the train for New York the fol- lowing morning. I got up before daylight and took the milk train at 5 a.m. Wolfie met me at Grand Central Station in New York. Harris, his chauffeur for twenty-two years, drove us over to Jersey. The man who per- formed the marriage ceremony mumbled his words, I remember, and I'm certain the whole thing didn't take more than a minute and a half. I read the marriage ceremony years later. It's beautiful; I didn't know how beautiful at the time. We climbed into the car and Harris drove us back to New York. Wolfie was then living at the Algonquin Hotel; it was handy to the Lambs Club. We weren't going to announce the marriage right away, so Hopper confided in his dear friend hotelman Frank Case, and Frank arranged the rooms next to Wolfie's for me, with a con- necting door. As soon as we got upstairs Hopper gave me a hasty kiss, said jauntily, "Well, see you later," and left. He was rehearsing in Iolanthe at the old Casino Theatre and the production was to open in four days.