John Daly slips up when repeating Arlene’s question to Hedda Hopper. Arlene asked if she was a freelance performer versus someone signed to a studio. Hedda couldn’t hear the question, so John repeats with a major slip at 19:50: “Are you a freelance reporter versus someone who works for a single studio?” No one on the panel or in the audience seemed to catch that he said “reporter.” I had to go back to make sure I heard it right! How unusual for John to mistakenly drop such a major hint! Hedda may have been venomous to some people, but I think she’s a wonderful mystery guest.
@z In the terminology used on this show, the people who came in with occupations to be guessed were called "contestants" since they were trying to stump the panel. The prizes were small amounts of money by the standards of most game shows, but they were prizes nonetheless. I hope you'll watch more and get to know the jargon specific to this show.
It should be remembered that the producers brought in funny men like Borge as guest panelists to act funny, not to contribute to the efficacy of the game. Sometimes their particular talents did not always fit well within the structure of the show. Borge & Wally Cox come to mind.
@@jamesfox2579: Based on your punctuation, I assume you have a question! Are you asking who preppysocks is? He has posted many, many times on these threads that DK was NOT murdered. Much evidence says otherwise.
Though Hedda Hopper was primarily known for the nationally syndicated gossip column she wrote for the Los Angeles Times, she also appeared in movies. The role I remember her in was "Dolly DuPuyster", a gossip columnist she portrayed in the 1939 film "The Women", based on Clare Boothe's Broadway play of the same name. (A gossip columnist portraying a gossip columnist -- go figure!) Hopper was known for always wearing large, flamboyant hats, one of which can be seen in this appearance. She was 74 years old as of the air date for this episode of WML. She died in 1966 at age 80.
ToddSF 94109 My favorite of her roles is as a society matron in MIDNIGHT (1939). In a cast with strong personalities like Claudette Colbert, Don Ameche, Myrna Loy, and John Barrymore, she more than holds her own. The film has a sophisticated and funny script by Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder, and is well worth seeking out. In case you're wondering about her professional singing, she got her stage start in musicals and comic operettas with her husband DeWolf Hopper.
The good manners of WML is still startling. For example, Dorothy and Hedda were sort of rival columnists, even though one worked the New York scene and the other the Hollywood scene, but Dorothy stands up to greet her. John Payne had recently recovered from a serious auto accident.
soulierinvestments -- Hedda Hopper's real arch-rival, though, was Louella Parsons, who, like Dorothy K. worked for William Randolph Hearst. I remember when Parsons was the mystery guest and Dorothy treated her as though she were the Queen mother. I think Dorothy's column covered New York gossip and Hopper's column covered Hollywood gossip, so that may have helped.
@@ToddSF I laughed at your observation (six years later!) that Dorothy treated Louella as the queen mother. You’re right, she did! I think it was because Louella appeared to be more or less in her dotage at the time she appeared on WML. Hedda was still very successful in 1959, and clearly sharp as a tack.
At 9:30 Arlene asks "Do you either play a musical instrument, sing, or dance?" and gets the answer "One" which is later clarified to playing. But in the 1943 movie musical "Higher and Higher" Victor Borge had done all three; in one scene he dances while Mel Tormé is (apparently) playing a harpsichord. Sort of an odd division of labor there....
Hedda Hopper had enough self-confidence and good-natured humor to parody herself and the Hollywood studio system in several episodes of "The Beverly Hillbillies" third season To all of the self-righteous red apologists and defenders bashing Hedda , she was more of a woman than most of you guys will ever be.
Someone observed on another Hedda MG episode that each panel member’s smile immediately faded after shaking Hedda’s hand, and Arlene looked down at her hands. It could have been dislike or it could have been something totally innocuous, but I found it interesting!
It seems that Norman Niblo was a policeman working for the City of London, but according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, the term "bobby" is slang for a member of London's Metropolitan Police Force, derived from the name of Sir Robert Peel, who established the force in 1829 to patrol all of metropolitan London *except* the City of London (the square-mile financial district, roughly defined by the old Roman walls; the "city within a city" that was mentioned). Scotland Yard is the common name for the Metropolitan Police headquarters, so most London "bobbies" work under the supervision of Scotland Yard, and the guest was one of the exceptions who are employed by the City. The discussion ended up being very misleading. www.britannica.com/topic/bobby
I would have to agree with you. I'm from the UK and have known several policemen, both with the 'Met' and the City Police. I would always assume that this is a generic nickname which applied to any police officer in the UK.
I did not like when they rushed the final contestant. They should’ve come up with some alternative for the last few minutes rather than rushing contestants.
Hopper was very talented: she could write [gossip], act, sing, and she was highly fashionable. She aged well and looked even better. She was a Taurus--tried and true.
I wonder what was going through Dorothy's mind when she asked at 6:26 "May I rule out that you deal... that your *product* is living human beings?" Slavery had been outlawed for quite a while by then.
Please remove this complete and utter waste of space from the comments section. Unfortunately today's awful society is full of pathetic losers intent on ruining other people's enjoyment of social media. Moronic cretin.
Walter Winchell was a nasty horrible piece of work!!! He was an untalented dancer who went into the gutter and tormented people and destroyed lifes. He was very friendly with Joseph McCarthy as well...
@@randysills4418 Hedda Hopper was probably more talented at destroying lives. She was a horrible example of a human being. Im amazed she has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
soulierinvestments -- That's because he was raising honest-to-God Rock Cornish game hens to maturity with lots of meat on their bones. His competitors were selling baby chickens without as much meat, and they would put a piece of turkey neck in the cavity to bring them up to weight. Those fake Rock Cornish game hens cost a lot less to raise and market. Borge hated the fact that the U.S. government had no regulations that prevented the mislabeling of baby chickens with a piece of turkey neck inside as a Rock Cornish game hen. He lost money because he just couldn't compete with the fakes.
Ramona Baker -- I note that Hedda Hopper's son was William Hopper, the actor who played Paul Drake in the TV series "Perry Mason" (1957-1966). He hated what Hedda Hopper did for a living as a gossip columnist -- she published a lot of things that were damaging to people and took delight that she could do that to people. So William Hopper got to the point that he cut off contact with his mother.
Hedda masked her natural suspicious, smugly superior personality behind a facade of geniality, but she could be a real nasty piece of work if she didn't approve of your politics or sexual proclivities.
Hedda was probably bitter that although she had acted in over 150 films before becoming a gossip columnist, she never became an A list star. This was implied in the film Trumbo, which addresses Hedda's transition from film actress to gossip columnist.
I think they were mixing up their languages in a joking way. In Germany, the main stock exchange is called the Börse, pronounced approximately bursa. Arlene was being funny by referring to the German stock market as borscht, which is an Eastern European soup with beets as the main ingredient.
![What's My Line? - Hedda Hopper; John Payne [panel] (Oct 11, 1959)](/img/logo.svg){kind=logo}
