Dissent and Consent in the "Good War": Hedda Hopper, Hollywood Gossip, and World War II Isolationism.

Hedda Hopper is known as the great rival of William Randolph Hearst's Hollywood columnist, Louella Parsons. But in her columns and radio broadcasts, Hopper found ways of her own to incorporate highly charged political opinions alongside privileged accounts of Hollywood celebrity culture. Working with the Hopper papers at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, this essay reveals the ways in which the columnist's conservative political agenda dealt with domestic issues, appropriate responses to the outbreak of war in Europe, and the aftermath of the Pearl Harbor attack. Hopper's leading role in the anti-communist movement which affected Hollywood in the post-war period is seen the logical continuation of her earlier positions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]