AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF AMERICAN STUDIES 73 ‘GOOD RIDDANCE TO BAD COMPANY’: HEDDA HOPPER, HOLLYWOOD GOSSIP, AND THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST CHARLIE CHAPLIN, 1940-1952 JENNIFER FROST ABSTRACT: Prominent in the motion picture industry and among political conservatives in the mid-twentieth-century United States, Hollywood gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, together with her readers, had an impact on American popular and political culture during the Cold War, an impact most evident in Hopper’s campaign against film actor and filmmaker Charlie Chaplin in the 1940s and early 1950s In collaboration with anticommunist forces inside and outside Hollywood, Hopper and her readers contributed to the revocation of Chaplin’s U.S re-entry visa in 1952 which, in turn, led to Chaplin’s decision to leave the United States permanently Far from being ‘trivial’ or ‘idle’ talk, Hopper’s gossip column and her readers’ responses condemned Chaplin’s personal, political, and professional life and blurred the invisible but influential boundary between what was considered ‘public’ and ‘private’ in Cold War America In 1938, a struggling, underemployed supporting actress and fledgling writer had her syndicated movie gossip column picked up by the Los Angeles Times With that ‘Hedda Hopper’s Hollywood’ had the audience it needed Following in the footsteps of her soon-to-be archrival Louella Parsons, Hedda Hopper emerged as a powerful figure in the Hollywood movie industry during its ‘golden age’ and remained influential into the 1960s Syndicated in 85 metropolitan newspapers, 3000 small town dailies, and 2000 weeklies during the 1940s, Hopper’s column had an estimated daily readership of 35 million by the mid-1950s (out of a national population of 160 million).1 Among these readers were filmgoers and fans who wrote enough letters in response to the content of Hopper’s column to employ two clerks working full time by the early 1940s.2 By the middle of the last century, Hopper in her famous hats had become a Hollywood icon, even gracing the cover of the July 28, 1947 issue of Time magazine The staples of Hopper’s column, as with all Hollywood gossip and fan magazines, were the actual—and manufactured—details about the private lives and personal problems of Hollywood stars Gossip played a key role in the intertextual mix of movie roles and off-screen personalities, of public images and private lives that created the star persona.3 Hollywood gossip could be favourable or malicious Although most Hollywood gossip was and is favourable, as its purveyors need to support the motion picture industry upon which they depend, the popular image of Hopper was that of 74 AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF AMERICAN STUDIES a ‘vicious witch’ who engaged in ‘bare-nailed bitchery.’4 She positioned herself as the voice of small-town America and used her column to express what she saw as proper mores and values and to advise, and chastise, the residents of ‘Hollywood Babylon’ about their actual and alleged behaviour As a consequence, the lives of individual stars became subject to popular criticism from Hopper’s readers and other moviegoers.5 Yet, Hopper saw herself and acted not only as a newspaper columnist, Hollywood insider, and moral arbiter but also as a political figure Always a political conservative and a proud, active, and highly partisan member of the Republican Party, Hopper used her journalistic platform to express her political values, endorse candidates, report on her political activities, and mobilize her readers around a variety of contemporary political issues The political content of her column often prompted newspaper editors to complain that she had been hired to write about entertainment—not politics—but she simply ignored them, with no loss of business until near the end of her career in the 1960s.6 It helped that she won a major contract for her column with the Chicago Tribune-New York Daily News Syndicate in 1942 and had the support of Col Robert McCormick, the politically conservative owner and publisher of the Chicago Tribune In her column, Hopper expressed strong opposition to the New Deal in the 1930s, U.S intervention during World War II, and the civil rights movement in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s At the core of her conservatism, however, was her vehement anticommunism, which led to her enthusiasm for the Cold War at home and abroad Hopper achieved the height of her prominence in popular culture in 1947, just as the Cold War began, and her career supported and benefited from the Cold War By rallying her readers to fight ‘the Red Menace,’ Hopper contributed to a grassroots anticommunism that conveyed popular support for the Cold War; in turn her staunch anticommunism brought her visibility and power inside and outside Hollywood The intertwining of politics, personal life, and popular culture around Hopper’s movie gossip column during the Cold War reveals how she and her readers blurred the imaginary yet influential boundary between what was considered to be ‘public’ and ‘private’ in mid-twentieth-century America Gossip was understood to be private talk—talk about those things which ought to kept private—voiced, often illegitimately, in the public realm Not coincidentally, gossip also was seen as ‘women’s talk,’ a gendered activity, brought into a gendered domain, the masculinist public Reinforcing the gendered nature of Hollywood gossip were the facts that Hopper and most of her reader-respondents were female Yet, as in traditional societies, Hollywood gossip also had a public function It shared information and knowledge, contributed to a sense of community among moviegoers, and, in Hopper’s case, provided a platform and an audience for AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF AMERICAN STUDIES 75 her political views As practiced by Hopper and her readers, Hollywood gossip became an arena for discussion and debate—‘a discursive political forum’7—about significant and contested issues of public and private life and their intersections in mid-twentieth-century America Of all of the instances of discussion and debate that Hopper’s long career generated, one stands precisely at the intersection of public and private life: Hopper’s campaign against the film actor and filmmaker Charlie Chaplin in the 1940s and early 1950s For over a decade, Hopper mounted a campaign against Charlie Chaplin, her ‘bête noir,’ according to Hopper’s biographer George Eells.8 She consistently criticized his professional output of the 1940s and early 1950s—The Great Dictator (1940), Monsieur Verdoux (1947), and Limelight (1952)—his political support for liberal and left causes, and his personal life, including his status in the United States as a resident non-citizen, and his sexual and marital relationships with women No other campaign in her career targeted the totality of a Hollywood insider’s life Although Hopper singled out specific criticisms at different points in her anti-Chaplin campaign, she found his personality and his politics, his private life and his motion picture productions equally egregious Reporting both facts and rumours on all three fronts—the personal, the political, and the professional—Hopper aimed to ruin Chaplin’s career in Hollywood, and she worked with allies inside and outside the industry to achieve this aim Hopper’s red scare politics linked her to important forces in domestic anticommunism within and beyond Hollywood, and she collaborated with these forces in a far-reaching campaign against Chaplin between 1940 and 1952 Her critical commentaries on Chaplin appeared unedited in the Chicago Tribune, which stood out among major newspapers for its consistently damaging coverage of Chaplin during these years.9 Hopper also was a prominent member of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, founded in 1944 to fight Communist ‘subversion’ in the motion picture industry, and she cooperated with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the House Committee on UnAmerican activities (HUAC), and reactive pressure groups such as the American Legion and the Catholic War Veterans These forces succeeded in their anti-Chaplin efforts when the U.S Department of Justice revoked Chaplin’s re-entry visa in 1952, leading to Chaplin’s decision to leave the United States permanently Hopper’s contribution to the campaign against Chaplin drew strong support from her reader-respondents who objected to Chaplin’s liberal-leftist politics, his movies, and his alleged violation of dominant standards of morality and traditional gender norms Attention to the views and actions of Hopper and her readers indicate both the power of popular conservatism and how issues of public and private life—true and 76 AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF AMERICAN STUDIES rumoured—played out and intertwined in Hollywood gossip and national life in Cold War America Private Life, Personal Behaviour Hedda Hopper never liked Charlie Chaplin Although she admired the artistry of his early film career—‘I bow to his talent, which verges on genius’—he did what a Hollywood gossip columnist could not tolerate: he ignored her.10 Chaplin’s worldwide fame and extensive economic resources gave him an extraordinary measure of independence within the motion picture industry, so he did not have to ‘truckle to gossip columnists.’11 Unlike other filmmakers, he never complained about being left out of Hopper’s column and never responded to her praise or criticism ‘It was galling,’ Eells notes.12 ‘Hedda was like a big kid,’ a Hollywood publicist remembered ‘Chaplin had slighted her.’13 Later on, after dealing with Hopper’s animosity for years, when Chaplin did have some news—the announcement of his 1943 marriage to Oona O’Neill, for example—he gave the story to Hopper’s rival, Louella Parsons.14 Hopper labelled him ‘the least co-operative star,’ reported negatively on his desire to ‘keep his name out of the papers—which is what he’s always wished,’ and was delighted when Chaplin, after shunning the public spotlight, found himself in need of publicity to market his latest film ‘Well, well Charlie Chaplin hired a press agent Brother, he can use one.’ ‘Dear Charlie,’ she added acidly, ‘It’s different when you’ve got something to sell, isn’t it?’15 Further infuriating Hopper was the fact that Chaplin, born in England, lived in the United States for decades, making movies and money, and yet he never became an American citizen She constantly referred to his lack of U.S citizenship, calling Chaplin ‘the man who came to dinner and stayed 40 years’ and considering him insufficiently appreciative or patriotic towards the United States: ‘he—who’s not an American citizen—continues taking advantage of the tolerance of a country which made him millions and gave him a home.’16 She accused him of a lack of patriotism during World War I—forgetting his prominent Liberty Bond campaign—and World War II, contending he had acted selfishly by hiring round-the-clock bodyguards despite the ‘man power shortage.’17 Hopper never missed a chance to declare, erroneously, Chaplin’s longing to leave the United States, reporting variously on his plans to ‘quit Hollywood and spend his declining years elsewhere’ or his ‘arrangements to make his future pictures in Argentina,’ and then having to retract these statements later.18 A number of Hopper’s readers endorsed the idea of Chaplin’s departure ‘Let him go to England and stay there, not earn his money here and refuse to be a citizen,’ wrote one New York woman.19 These attacks on Chaplin’s status as a non-citizen revealed the nativist beliefs of Hopper and these reader-respondents Hopper AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF AMERICAN STUDIES 77 believed until proven otherwise that non-Americans living within the borders of the United States posed a threat to the nation To Hopper, Chaplin represented not only an alien threat but also a moral threat Chaplin’s reputation as a moral or sexual ‘subversive’20 emerged from his real and alleged sexual and marital relations with women, particularly with young women, and Hopper reinforced this reputation for him in her column Married unsuccessfully three times, his fourth marriage with O’Neill, daughter of the famous author and playwright Eugene O’Neill, was a lasting one Chaplin met his future fourth wife when she was seventeen, and, although the pair waited until her eighteenth birthday to marry, the thirty-six year gap in their ages appalled Hopper—despite or perhaps because of a similar age gap between her and De Wolf Hopper, whom she divorced in 1924.21 Over the years, Hopper accused Chaplin of using and abusing young women through casual sexual affairs and ‘castingcouch promiscuity’: giving or promising the woman a leading role in his latest film, having a sexual relationship, and then dropping her from the film and his life.22 In late 1943, Hopper reported on the ‘many screen tests of girls whom he’s discovered, which have never seen the light of day.’ She also emphasized the young age of the women in his life, introducing ‘little Oona O’Neill, Chaplin’s latest lady, who just passed her 18th birthday’ and recalling the story of an actress ‘who was a youngster hardly out of pigtails, busy with her schoolbooks, when her Chaplin chance came along.’23 But Hopper dealt her greatest blow to Chaplin’s moral reputation on June 3, 1943 when she facilitated and then broke the story of actress Joan Barry’s paternity lawsuit against him, a scandal that led to three trials during World War II and proved ‘a turning point in the unravelling of Chaplin’s star image,’ according to Chaplin biographer Charles J Maland.24 One day, as Hopper recalled in her memoirs, ‘a girl walked into my office I’d never seen her before; nor had I ever seen anyone as hysterical From her wild eyes, I knew she was on the borderline of something desperate.’25 The ‘girl’ was 24-year-old actress Joan Barry In 1941, Chaplin met Barry, cast her briefly in a film, had a sexual affair with her, and then broke it off in late 1942 Barry, who had a history of mental illness, continued to pursue him and, in May 1943, sought to confront Chaplin with her pregnancy, claiming he was the father, but Chaplin refused to meet with her.26 Hopper was outraged and, together with fellow gossip columnist and ‘veteran sob sister’ Florabel Muir, encouraged the paternity lawsuit against Chaplin, publicized Barry’s side of the story, and supported her throughout the first trial and a retrial.27 ‘At stake was the life of an unborn child,’ Hopper later dramatized.28 ‘I am not responsible for Miss Barry’s condition,’ Chaplin declared, and blood tests proved him right Yet, blood test results were inadmissible in California courts, and, after the first jury deadlocked in late 78 AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF AMERICAN STUDIES 1944, the jury at the second trial in mid-1945 decided he was indeed the father and obligated him to pay child support—a decision one Los Angeles attorney considered ‘a landmark in the miscarriage of justice.’29 In the meantime, with help from Hopper, federal authorities used the BarryChaplin scandal to indict Chaplin for violating the Mann Act, popularly known as the White Slave Traffic Act, which ‘made it illegal to transport a woman across state lines for immoral purposes.’30 Chaplin had paid for a roundtrip Los Angeles-New York City train fare for Barry in October 1942 but denied having sexual relations with Barry at that time Hopper’s role in the federal indictment, as with the paternity suit, again proved important She provided information on Chaplin’s relationship with Barry to the FBI during its investigation, served as a popular media outlet for the FBI’s alleged findings, testified before the grand jury that indicted Chaplin, and publicized the charges and subsequent 1944 trial in her column Hopper successfully worked to foster sympathy for Barry and enmity for Chaplin among her readers by publishing stories about a ‘very nervous’ Barry testifying in court and an incident when Barry ‘collapsed completely.’31 ‘I wish to congratulate you on your stand in the Chaplin matter,’ a Chicago woman wrote ‘Apparently you are the only columnist who isn’t afraid of him because the others either avoid it altogether or handle it with gloves.’ ‘P.S.,’ she added, ‘we don’t think C Chaplin is a genius.’ Another female reader saw Hopper’s defence of Barry as integral to American involvement in World War II Just a few lines to let you know that one American woman appreciates the efforts you have made in your fight for Joan Barry’s Civil Rights … This case in the paper brings home to us all of the things we are fighting for and sacrificing much That one small girl can’t be pushed around by a lot of people with authority and influence is just one more good example of our American way.32 The Justice Department and the U.S Attorney’s office in Los Angeles later concurred they had ‘flimsy evidence’ against Chaplin stemming from the Barry affair However, when Chaplin won an acquittal, Hopper remained silent about his victory and continued her personal attacks, undermining his vindication.33 Later, she attributed his acquittal to his ‘suave, insinuating,’ and expensive lawyer ‘As usual,’ she muttered, ‘he kept out of jail.’ 34 Hopper’s readers echoed her indirect accusation of Chaplin buying his acquittal in the Mann case ‘I hope that his dough hasn’t silenced justice completely,’ wrote one reader, while a woman reader believed ‘he got away with murder…with all his millions and marriages.’35 Hopper often called attention to Chaplin’s personal wealth, estimated at upwards of $30 million, AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF AMERICAN STUDIES 79 and with more than a hint of anti-Semitism She assumed Chaplin was Jewish, as did many other critics on the political right, and she often drew on anti-Semitic stereotypes to denounce him.36 She continually referred to his money and accused him of miserliness Instead of giving to her favourite charities, ‘Mr Charlie Chaplin has held onto all his…money.’ ‘He’s had an opportunity to contribute to the Motion Picture Relief Fund Home,’ she declared ‘He didn’t.’37 When Chaplin denied the mistaken assumption that he was Jewish, Hopper criticized him ‘Jews should be proud of their heritage,’ she wrote smugly ‘Christ was a Jew.’38 During and after the Barry-Chaplin scandal and trials, Hopper’s coverage of Chaplin and letters from her readers made his private life and behaviour into a public policy concern Hopper linked his alleged immorality with his status as a non-citizen, and during the scandal she quoted an unnamed source on ‘moral turpitude as good and sufficient grounds for the deportation of an alien.’39 Similarly, North Dakota Senator William Langer sought Chaplin’s deportation in 1945, emphasizing ‘his unsavoury record of lawbreaking, of rape, or the debauching of American girls 16 and 17 years of age.’40 An ‘indignant reader’ of Hopper’s spared no ugliness in agreement Ye Gods cannot that Chaplin beast be thwarted? Moral turpitude has landed some…in Ellis Island and worse places and that nasty repulsive little enemy alien flies high… He should be ridden out of this America which he so scorns Get busy you grand person and show him up.41 By seeing the private Chaplin as a public threat and unworthy of residence in the United States, Hopper, her reader, and conservatives, like Langer, anticipated the revocation of his re-entry visa in 1952, a move that stemmed from Cold War attacks on Chaplin as guilty of both ‘moral perversion’ and ‘political subversion.’42 Public Life, Political Activism Chaplin’s liberal-left politics and support for progressive causes had long drawn the attention and ire of Hopper and other Hollywood conservatives, as well as state and federal authorities Jack B Tenney, a California state senator and chair of the Joint Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities (California’s ‘little HUAC’), considered Chaplin ‘within the Stalinist orbit.’43 Hopper also deeply distrusted Chaplin When he gave two speeches in 1942 calling for a ‘second front’ against Germany in western Europe to aid the Soviet Union’s fight in the east, she argued he had preempted and undermined authorities, as ‘that front had already been arranged 80 AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF AMERICAN STUDIES by the British and American governments.’44 During the Cold War, Chaplin’s ‘second front’ speeches looked like ‘procommunist subversion’ to Hopper, her allies, and her readers ‘It is high time our lefties begin to learn that we are wise to em,’ wrote one California man to Hopper.45 Reinforcing Chaplin’s leftist reputation were his support for organized labour and refusal to cross picket lines during the 1945-1946 Hollywood strikes, and his endorsement of the Progressive Party’s candidate Henry Wallace during the 1948 presidential campaign Most damning of all, however, were his interactions with Soviet artists and diplomats, friendships and associations with the Hollywood Left, and defence of the civil liberties of Communists.46 When Hopper falsely charged Chaplin with contributing $25,000 to the Communist Party, the charge made it into Chaplin’s FBI file; an investigation into whether Chaplin indeed ever had joined or financially supported the Communist Party USA concluded in November 1949 that he had not.47 But Hopper never wavered in her belief that Chaplin, as a foreigner and political progressive, upheld ‘an ideology offensive to most Americans and contrary to the principles that have left this nation the last refuge of freedom-loving people,’ an ideology he was—she claimed—‘fostering’ through his activities and his films.48 Hopper’s assumption that ‘Red propaganda has been put over in some films’ was shared by her allies on the anticommunist right, including the American Legion, the FBI, and HUAC, which subpoenaed Chaplin for its October 1947 hearings about Communist subversion in the motion picture industry ‘Despite protests, Charlie Chaplin, Paul Henreid, Peter Lorre, John Howard Lawson and Clifford Odets will soon be making a trip to Washington, D.C., for that Commie investigation,’ Hopper wrote in early September that year, but Chaplin was never called to testify.49 Still, she regarded his films with great suspicion As an isolationist who opposed U.S entry into World War II, Hopper saw Chaplin’s pro-intervention, satirical attack on Adolf Hitler in The Great Dictator (1940) as an affront Chaplin’s final speech, which scholars consider an ‘impassioned six-minute attack on the dehumanizing material and spiritual conditions that have led to fascism,’ left Hopper ‘colder than an icicle.’50 For the FBI, The Great Dictator was ‘nothing more than subtle Communist propaganda.’51 Chaplin’s 1947 film Monsieur Verdoux, in release just as HUAC was gearing up for its October hearings, also advanced a progressive, antifascist view of politics and society and provided fodder for Chaplin’s enemies, including Hopper The comedy’s black humour and Chaplin’s role as a French Bluebeard who married and murdered wealthy women for their money marked a distinct ‘departure from Chaplin’s aesthetic contract.’52 Hopper could not have been happier ‘Poor dears,’ she called the publicists AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF AMERICAN STUDIES 81 for the film’s distributor United Artists, because ‘they’re expected to perform miracles in reclaiming Chaplin’s lost popularity and prestige with Mr and Mrs America.’ ‘I’ve witnessed a historic occasion,’ Hopper quoted an unnamed industry executive about a screening of Monsieur Verdoux ‘I’ve just seen Chaplin’s “last” picture.’ 53 This comment was not far off the mark Despite an innovative marketing strategy by the ‘brash’ free-lance publicity agent Russell Birdwell, who played up the film’s controversial content—even Hopper received Birdwell’s promotional telegrams— Monsieur Verdoux was a box-office failure and panned by critics in the United States.54 Even more significantly, the film was subject to picketing, boycotts, and bans, and the FBI labelled it ‘Soviet propaganda.’55 Hopper reported positively on the protests, received material from the FBI, and aided in the red-baiting of Chaplin by publicizing enthusiastic reviews of Monsieur Verdoux that appeared in left-wing publications.56 This ‘hate campaign,’ to borrow film historian Tino Balio’s apt term, was directed at Chaplin and his film because his financial independence made him invulnerable to the Hollywood blacklist, the punishment meted out to other filmmakers accused of Communist sympathies beginning in late 1947.57 This hate campaign culminated in the cancellation of Chaplin’s re-entry permit in 1952, a few months before U.S national elections returned Hopper’s Republican Party to the White House after two decades of Democratic control Between 1947 and 1952, the Cold War and domestic anticommunism intensified with the Soviet atomic bomb, Communist victory in China, the Klaus Fuchs and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg spy cases, and the Korean War Hopper continued to work against Chaplin In 1950, when Chaplin decided to re-release his 1931 classic City Lights as a way to reconnect with American audiences, Hopper sought to undermine him ‘Charlie Chaplin’s fearful about reissuing his picture, “City Lights” here Thinks there’s too much ill feeling against him personally.’58 She also strategized with Richard Nixon, at the time a U.S Senator from California but soon to be the Republican Party’s nominee for Vice President ‘I agree with you that the way the Chaplin case has been handled has been a disgrace for years,’ Nixon wrote Hopper in May 1952 ‘Unfortunately, we aren’t able to much about it when the top decisions are made by the likes of Acheson and McGranery,’ referring to the Secretary of State and the Attorney General in the Democratic administration of President Harry S Truman But a Republican victory in November could change the situation.59 To help achieve victory for the Republicans in 1952, Hopper sought to associate Chaplin’s image of alien, moral, and political subversion with the Truman administration At a time of intense competition between the two main political parties, members of the Republican Party benefited from 82 AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF AMERICAN STUDIES accusing the Democrats of being ‘soft on communism.’60 When Chaplin and his family planned a trip to Europe in September to promote his new film Limelight (1952), Hopper reported that ‘Charlie’s arrangements were made through the Justice Department, and their permit to re-enter America was obtained through the same source,’ implying collusion between Chaplin and the Truman administration when, in fact, he secured his permit just like every other resident alien, through the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS).61 But U.S Attorney General James McGranery erased any appearance of Democratic favouritism toward Chaplin when, two days after Chaplin left the country, he rescinded Chaplin’s re-entry permit and ordered the INS to hold him for hearings about his political beliefs and moral behaviour upon his return.62 Although the now bipartisan campaign against Chaplin cut short Hopper’s partisan political attack, she had gotten what she wanted, and she crowed Chaplin had thought he had ‘the right to go against our customs, to abhor everything we stand for, to throw our hospitality back in our faces.’ ‘I’ve known him for many years,’ she continued ‘I abhor what he stands for, while I admire his talents as an actor I would like to say, “Good riddance to bad company.”’63 Hopper’s ‘vituperative’ condemnation ‘was one of the worst press lashings Chaplin ever received,’ according to Charles J Maland, and received a wide audience when Time magazine included it in their coverage of Chaplin’s immigration troubles.64 ‘When I finished reading your column,’ one woman wrote Hopper, ‘I said out loud “Give it to him Hedda” and I know you will.’ ‘Good riddance to his type of British,’ agreed another.65 Hopper’s readers confirmed Chaplin’s popular image as both politically and morally subversive, with one woman reader including in the same sentence criticism of the age difference between Chaplin and Oona O’Neill and his support for Henry Wallace back in 1948 ‘Ever since I saw pictures of Chaplin and his wife, also making out checks for Wallace I have felt something should be done.’ A male reader held nothing back, calling him ‘that infamous, morally depraved, and pinko Charles Chaplin.’66 Hopper later revealed her access to inside information about Chaplin’s reentry permit application in her column ‘I’ve had a very close check on that for months,’ she claimed, very probably accurately given her relationship with the FBI Similarly, she later reported that Chaplin ‘never would have allowed his dancing feet to wander away from our shores’ if he had known the decision of government officials, who ‘were so afraid he’d get wind of their plans they practically held their breaths for two months.’67 The campaign against Chaplin involved a number of American institutions, including the two main political parties, the FBI, Congress, the Department of Justice, the INS, and the press—Hopper most notoriously—cooperating formally and informally.68 AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF AMERICAN STUDIES 83 As it turned out, the INS had a ‘paucity of evidence against Chaplin’ to detain him on either political or moral grounds When the FBI could not provide the INS with reliable evidence of connections between Chaplin and the Communist Party, INS officials realized they could not build a political case against him, and so Chaplin’s alleged immoral behaviour came to be seen as ‘key to the case.’69 Rumour and unverifiable accusations, as well as memories of the Barry-Chaplin scandal and the image of Chaplin as a moral subversive, ended up dominating the U.S government’s case against Chaplin Certainly, they dominated Attorney General McGranery’s statement: If what has been said about him is true, he is, in my opinion, an unsavoury character [who] has been publicly charged with being a member of the Communist Party, with grave moral charges and with making statements that would indicate a leering, sneering attitude toward a country whose hospitality has enriched him.70 The innuendo and intertwining of public and private life that characterized Hopper’s columns, her readers’ responses, and Hollywood gossip generally had found an audience and endorsement from the highest law official in the United States To be sure, this weak case meant it was ‘highly likely’ Chaplin would have been readmitted to the United States, if he had returned; to Hopper and her allies’ great satisfaction, he did not.71 Although at first Chaplin had said he would return to the United States to answer charges, he surrendered his re-entry permit in Switzerland in April 1953 A second massive hate campaign directed against his new film Limelight had occurred after his departure from the United States, spearheaded by Hopper’s allies in the American Legion and Catholic War Veterans and supported by her reader-respondents One male reader wanted Hopper to send her ‘good riddance’ column ‘to all American Legion and other 100% American groups.’ ‘There are so many people,’ a Connecticut woman wrote, ‘that will not attend his pictures; they have absolutely no respect for him at all.’72 The hate campaign destroyed the box office potential for Limelight, with the film playing in only about 150 of the 2000 theatres in which it was originally booked.73 This poor reception indicated that Chaplin had no future in the United States as a filmmaker and actor Chaplin spoke out against the ‘lies and vicious propaganda by powerful reactionary groups who by their influence and by the aid of America’s yellow press have created an unhealthy atmosphere in which liberal minded individuals can be singled out and persecuted,’ and broke his ties with America.74 84 AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF AMERICAN STUDIES By helping to create this ‘unhealthy atmosphere,’ Hopper had achieved her aim of ruining Chaplin’s career in Hollywood, but she remained vigilant in her watch over him until the end of her life ‘I don’t know about the rest of you,’ she wrote in her column in November 1965, ‘but personally I feel better when an ocean separates Charlie and the land of the free Let’s keep it that way.’75 To nearly her last, dying breath, Hopper never let up on Chaplin Just two days before she entered the hospital where she soon died of pneumonia in February 1966, she spoke to Florabel Muir, her collaborator in the Barry-Chaplin scandal ‘I hear that son of a bitch Chaplin is trying to get back in this country,’ she is reported as saying ‘We’ve all got to work together to stop him!’76 In these ways, Hedda Hopper and her readers contributed to the successful Cold War campaign against Charlie Chaplin Scholars see this incident primarily as the triumph of conservative, anticommunist forces in the United States during the Cold War, and Hopper and her readers should be considered part of these forces By providing a forum for advocating political and moral conservatism, Hopper’s gossip column constituted an important site for the popular politics of the Right during the World War II and Cold War eras The prominence, popularity, and political content of ‘Hedda Hopper’s Hollywood’ confirm recent historical scholarship that places conservatism in the mainstream of American politics and culture by mid-century and not on the margin as earlier scholars of U.S politics had contended.77 More generally, the anti-Chaplin campaign occurred at the intersection of Hollywood gossip and national politics, revealing the boundary between ‘public’ and ‘private’ to be more fiction than fact Hollywood gossip, as practiced by Hopper and her readers, politicized aspects of life considered to be private Just as in Hopper’s column, the right-wing campaign against Charlie Chaplin demonstrated that ‘private talk’ was integral to the public culture—an arena for the play of larger ideas, interests, and politics—of mid-twentieth America.78 ENDNOTES George Eells, Hedda and Louella, G P Putnam’s Sons, New York, 1972, p 210 Over time, Hopper’s column was variously titled “Hedda Makes Hay,” Time, 25 May 1942, pp 51-52 Correspondence from readers to Hopper is in the Hedda Hopper Collection, Department of Special Collections, Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills, California [hereafter HH-AMPAS] Although these letters are public and not private letters, given Hopper’s practice of publishing readers’ letters in her column, I am protecting the privacy of these letter-writers by using no names in the text and only using initials in citations For wellknown persons, I use their full names in citations and text Richard Dyer, Stars, British Film Institute, London, 1979, p 28; Barbara Klinger, Melodrama and Meaning: History, Culture, and the Films of Douglas Sirk, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1994, pp 97-98 AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF AMERICAN STUDIES 85 Jack Levin and Arnold Arluke, Gossip: The Inside Scoop, Plenum Press, New York, 1987; Geri Nicholas, quoted in Donald Bogle, Dorothy Dandridge: A Biography, Amistad, New York, 1997, p 245; Eells, Hedda and Louella, p 173 Annette Kuhn, Cinema, Censorship and Sexuality, 1909-1925, Routledge, London, 1988, pp 114-116 Eells, Hedda and Louella, p 264 Barbara Dianne Savage, Broadcasting Freedom: Radio, War, and the Politics of Race, 1938-1948, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1999, p Eells, Hedda and Louella, p 227 Charles J Maland, Chaplin and American Culture: The Evolution of a Star Image, Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J., 1989, pp 213-214 10 Hedda Hopper, From under my Hat, Doubleday, Garden City, N.Y., 1952, p 153 11 Maland, Chaplin and American Culture, p 208 12 Eells, Hedda and Louella, p 228 13 Publicist, quoted in Eells, Hedda and Louella, p 231 14 Hopper, From under my Hat, p 152 15 Hopper, ‘Looking at Hollywood,’ Los Angeles Times, 10 April 1944, A9 and February 1947, A3 16 Hopper, ‘“Black Widow” Handed to Nunnally Johnson,’ Los Angeles Times, 24 September 1952, p B8; Hopper, ‘Looking at Hollywood,’ Los Angeles Times, 22 March 1947, p A5 17 Hopper, ‘Marta Toren Recalled to Europe for New Film,’ Los Angeles Times, 22 September 1952, p B8; Hopper, ‘Looking at Hollywood,’ Los Angeles Times, 30 June 1943, p 13 18 Hopper, ‘Looking at Hollywood,’ Los Angeles Times, 15 December 1947, p 15, 24 October 1947, p A2, and 30 December 1947, p A2 19 AMD, Long Island, New York, to Hopper, 21 September 1952, Charlie Chaplin folder [hereafter Chaplin folder], HH-AMPAS 20 John Sbardellati and Tony Shaw, ‘Booting a Tramp: Charlie Chaplin, the FBI, and the Construction of the Subversive Image in Red Scare America,’ Pacific Historical Review, 72, 4, 2003, p 506 21 Eells, Hedda and Louella, p 230; ‘De Wolf Hopper Is Divorced by Fifth Wife; She Gets Son and 30 Per Cent of His Salary,’ New York Times, 30 January 1924, p 22 Hopper, From under my Hat, pp 148-150; Maland, Chaplin and American Culture, p 210 23 Hopper, ‘Looking at Hollywood,’ Los Angeles Times, October 1943, p 14 and June 1943, p 17 24 Maland, Chaplin and American Culture, p 197 25 Hopper, From under my Hat, p 149 26 Sbardellati and Shaw, ‘Booting a Tramp,’ p 507 27 Eells, Hedda and Louella, p 229; Maland, Chaplin and American Culture, p 201, 215 28 Hopper, From under my Hat, p 151 29 Chaplin and Los Angeles attorney, quoted in David Robinson, Chaplin: His Life and Art, revised ed., Grafton, London, 1992, p 520; Maland, Chaplin and American Culture, pp 206, 215 30 Maland, Chaplin and American Culture, p 202; Robinson, Chaplin, p 523 31 Hopper, ‘Looking at Hollywood,’ Los Angeles Times, 28 March 1944, p A10 and 17 June 1943, p 15 32 EK, Chicago, to Hopper, 10 February 1944 and CL, ‘A Plain Citizen,’ to Hopper, February 1944, Chaplin folder, HH-AMPAS 33 Maland, Chaplin and American Culture, pp 205, 212 34 Hopper, ‘Looking at Hollywood,’ Los Angeles Times, 28 March 1944, p A10; Hopper, From under my Hat, p 151 35 ‘Indignant Reader of the Daily News,’ New York, to Hopper [1944] and AMD, Long Island, New York, to Hopper, 21 September 1952, Chaplin folder, HH-AMPAS 86 36 AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF AMERICAN STUDIES Sbardellati and Shaw, ‘Booting a Tramp,’ pp 496, 514, n 67 Hopper, ‘Looking at Hollywood,’ Los Angeles Times, June 1943, p 17; Hopper, ‘Marta Toren Recalled to Europe for New Film,’ Los Angeles Times, 22 September 1952, p B8 38 Hopper’s June 1943 column in the Chicago Tribune, quoted in Maland, Chaplin and American Culture, p 209; this content was cut from the version of her column that ran in the Los Angeles Times 39 ‘An important Chicago man,’ quoted in Hopper’s 22 June 1943 column in the Pittsburgh Press, quoted in Maland, p 209; this content was cut from the version of her column that ran in the Los Angeles Times 40 Langer, quoted in Sbardellati and Shaw, ‘Booting a Tramp,’ p 506 41 ‘Indignant Reader of the Daily News,’ New York, to Hopper [1944], Chaplin folder, HHAMPAS 42 Sbardellati and Shaw, ‘Booting a Tramp,’ p 506 43 Greg Mitchell, Tricky Dick and the Pink Lady: Richard Nixon vs Helen Gahagan Douglas—Sexual Politics and the Red Scare, 1950, Random House, New York, 1998, p 58 44 Hopper, ‘Looking at Hollywood,’ Los Angeles Times, June 1943, p 17 45 D William Davis, ‘A Tale of Two Movies: Charlie Chaplin, United Artists, and the Red Scare,’ Cinema Journal, 27, 1, Autumn, 1987, p 48; JM, Alhambra, Calif., to Hopper, 22 September 1952, Chaplin folder, HH-AMPAS 46 Maland, Chaplin and American Culture, pp 221, 255-257 47 Hopper’s 27 December 1943 column in the Chicago Tribune, quoted in Maland, Chaplin and American Culture, p 210; this content was cut from the version of her column that ran in the Los Angeles Times; Otto Friedrich, City of Nets: A Portrait of Hollywood in the 1940s, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1997, p 393 48 Hopper, ‘Looking at Hollywood,’ Los Angeles Times, 22 March 1947, p A5 49 Hopper, ‘Looking at Hollywood,’ Los Angeles Times, September 1947, p A3, and September 1947, p A2; Larry Ceplair and Steven Englund, The Inquisition in Hollywood: Politics in the Film Community, 1930-60, University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 2003, pp 449450 50 Dan Kamin, ‘“Who is This Man (Who Looks Like Charlie Chaplin),”’ in Frank Scheide, Hooman Mehran, and Dan Kamin, eds., Chaplin: The Dictator and the Tramp, British Film Institute, London, 2004, p 9; Hopper, ‘Hedda Hopper’s Hollywood,’ Los Angeles Times, 16 October 1940, p 17 51 FBI, quoted in Sbardellati and Shaw, ‘Booting a Tramp,’ p 500, n 16 52 Maland, Chaplin and American Culture, p 226 53 Hopper, ‘Looking at Hollywood,’ Los Angeles Times, 18 March 1947, p A2 and 18 April 1947, p A3 54 Davis, ‘A Tale of Two Movies.’ p 52; Russell Birdwell to Hopper, 17 September 1947 and 28 September 1947, telegrams, Chaplin folder, HH-AMPAS 55 FBI, quoted in Sbardellati and Shaw, ‘Booting a Tramp,’ p 504 56 Hopper, ‘Looking at Hollywood,’ Los Angeles Times, 24 October 1947, p A2 and 17 April 1947, p A3; Maland, Chaplin and American Culture, p 268 57 Tino Balio, quoted in Davis, ‘A Tale of Two Movies,’ p 54; Sbardellati and Shaw, ‘Booting a Tramp,’ p 505 58 Hopper, ‘Anne Baxter Will Costar with Webb,’ Los Angeles Times, 13 May 1950, p 12; Maland, Chaplin and American Culture, p 275 59 Nixon to Hopper, 29 May 1952, quoted in Friedrich, City of Nets, pp 395-396 60 M.J Heale, American Anticommunism: Combating the Enemy Within, 1830-1970, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1990, p 146 61 Hopper, ‘New Orleans Will Get Break in Astaire Film,’ Los Angeles Times, 30 August 1952, p 10; Maland, Chaplin and American Culture, p 280 62 Robinson, Chaplin, p 572; Maland, Chaplin and American Culture, p 280 37 AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF AMERICAN STUDIES 63 87 Hopper, ‘Marta Toren Recalled to Europe for New Film,’ Los Angeles Times, 22 September 1952, p B8 64 Maland, Chaplin and American Culture, pp 301, 305 65 JMG, Lawndale, Calif, to Hopper, 23 September 1952 and CW, New York, to Hopper, 22 September 1952, Chaplin folder, HH-AMPAS 66 LVS, Los Angeles, to Hopper, 22 September 1952 and RA, New York City, to Hopper, 23 September 1952, Chaplin folder, HH-AMPAS 67 Hopper, ‘Marta Toren Recalled to Europe for New Film,’ Los Angeles Times, 22 September 1952, p B8; Hopper, ‘“Black Widow” Handed to Nunnally Johnson,’ Los Angeles Times, 24 September 1952, p B8 68 Maland, Chaplin and American Culture, p 273 69 Sbardellati and Shaw, ‘Booting a Tramp,’ pp 520-521 70 McGranery’s statement appears differently in different sources; I have quoted from both Robinson, Chaplin, p 575 and Sbardellati and Shaw, ‘Booting a Tramp,’ p 509 71 Sbardellati and Shaw, ‘Booting a Tramp,’ p 521 72 TS, Long Beach, Calif to Hopper, n.d., and MM, Willimantic, Conn., to Hopper, October 1952, Chaplin folder, HH-AMPAS 73 Davis, ‘A Tale of Two Movies,’ p 55 74 Chaplin, quoted in Sbardellati and Shaw, ‘Booting a Tramp,’ p 521 75 Hopper’s column, quoted in Anthony Slide, ‘Hedda Hopper’s Hollywood,’ LA Reader (April 4, 1986), p 8, Hedda Hopper Clipping File, AMPAS 76 Hopper, quoted in Eells, Hedda and Louella, p 233 77 Alan Brinkley, ‘AHR Forum: The Problem of American Conservatism,’ American Historical Review, 99, April, 1994, p 410 78 My concept of ‘public culture’ derives from Thomas Bender, ‘Wholes and Parts: The Need for Synthesis in American History,’ Journal of American History, 73, June, 1986, pp 120136  ... as the voice of small-town America and used her column to express what she saw as proper mores and values and to advise, and chastise, the residents of ? ?Hollywood Babylon’ about their actual and. .. work together to stop him!’76 In these ways, Hedda Hopper and her readers contributed to the successful Cold War campaign against Charlie Chaplin Scholars see this incident primarily as the triumph... ‘Unfortunately, we aren’t able to much about it when the top decisions are made by the likes of Acheson and McGranery,’ referring to the Secretary of State and the Attorney General in the Democratic administration