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THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT

DOUBLEDAY & COMPANY, INC. GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK

COPYRIGHT 1962, 1963 BY HEDDA HOPPER ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

DEDICATION

I'm told that when you write a book with a title like this, you must let your readers know something about your life. Well, I was born into the home of David and Margaret Furry, one of nine children. Seven of us grew up. Three of us are still here, including my sister Margaret and brother Edgar, who played a good game of football when he attended Lafayette quite a while back.

I first saw the light of day in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, a beautiful suburb of Altoona, which used to live off the Pennsylvania Railroad and its affiliates. Since railroads have fallen on lean and hungry years, I don't know what's feeding the place today.

My mother, an angel on earth whom I worshiped, named me Elda, from a story she was reading at the time. Years later, after I'd married DeWolf Hopper, a numerologist changed Elda to Hedda. My husband, Wolfie, was much older than my father and had been married four times before. The wives' names all sounded pretty much the same: Ella, Ida, Edna, and Nella. His memory wasn't as sharp as it had been, and he couldn't always remember that I was Elda.

My sister Margaret was my father's pet. He and I didn't get on well. He thought women should be the workers; I believed my brothers should share the burden. Mother was ill for six years after Margaret's birth, and I took on her duties as well as my own, since my older sister Dora had married. I had to catch a brother by the scruff of the neck to get any help, but they all helped themselves three times a day to the meals I prepared. I also did the washing, ironing, cleaning, and helped Dad in his butcher shop.

When I couldn't take it any more, I ran away--to an uncle in New York. I found a stage door that was open, walked in, and got a job in a chorus, which started a career.

My family now consists of my son Bill, who plays Paul Drake on the "Perry Mason" TV show without any help from me. When he went off to war, he'd already attained stature as an actor. On his return--with a medal for valor which I've never seen--not one soul in the motion-picture industry offered him a job. Hell would have frozen over before I'd have asked anyone for help for a member of my family.

I don't like to dwell on death, but when you reach my age you realize it's inevitable. I've left instructions for cremation--no ceremony--with my ashes sent to an undertaking cousin, Kenton R. Miller, of Martinsburg, Pennsylvania. I'd wanted a friend to scatter them over the Pacific from a plane, but California law forbids that. You have to buy a plot.

A salesman from Forest Lawn told me they'd opened a new section and I could rest in peace next to Mary Pickford for a mere ,000. "What do I get for that?" I asked.

"Well, a grave, picket fence, and a golden key for the gate."

"How do you figure I could use it?"

"Oh, Miss Hopper, that's for the loved ones who will mourn you."

That's when I decided on my cousin.

But Elizabeth, Burton, and I have something in common: Martin Gang, a topnotch attorney, has us as clients. He saw my column, as usual, before it appeared, and came on the telephone in a hurry. "Oh, you couldn't print that," he said. "It would be very embarrassing for me to sue you, since I represent all three."

I was in Hollywood at the time, not in Rome, so I was wanting the firsthand information, the personal testimony, which would be important in self-defense. I deferred to his judgment--and kicked myself for doing it when the news from the Appian Way began to sizzle.

I've known Elizabeth since she was nine years old, innocent and lovely as a day in spring. I liked, and pitied, her from the start, when her mother, bursting with ambition, brought her to my house one day to have her sing for me. Mrs. Sara Taylor was an actress from Iowa who had appeared just twice on Broadway before she married Francis Taylor, who worked for his uncle, Howard Young, as a manager of art galleries on both sides of the Atlantic. When World War II came along, she was in raptures to find herself with a beautiful young daughter, living right next door to Hollywood--her husband came to manage the gallery in the Beverly Hills Hotel.

Sara Taylor had never gotten over Broadway. She wanted to have a glamorous life again through her child. She had the idea at first that Elizabeth could be turned into another Deanna Durbin, who had a glittering name in those days. "Now sing for Miss Hopper," she commanded her daughter as soon as our introductions were over and we were sitting by the baby grand in my living room.

"Do you play the accompaniment?" I asked. "I can't."

"No, but she can sing without any. Elizabeth!"

It struck me as a terrifying thing to ask a little child to do for a stranger. But in a quivering voice, half swooning with fright, this lovely, shy creature with enormous violet eyes piped her way through her song. It was one of the most painful ordeals I've ever witnessed.

I remembered seeing the four-room cottage--simple to the point where water had to be heated on the kitchen stove--in which Elizabeth was born. Little Swallows was its name, and it sat in the woods of her godfather, Victor Cazelet; his English estate, Great Swifts, was in Kent. She had a pony there and grew to love animals like her chipmunk, "Nibbles," which ran up my bare arm when she brought it around on a visit one day. I screamed like a banshee, but Elizabeth was as patronizing as only a schoolgirl can be.

"It's only a chipmunk; it won't hurt you," she promised scornfully.

You couldn't have wished for a sweeter child. She would certainly have been happier leading that simple life close to woods and wild things to be tamed, maybe through all her years. But her mother had been bitten by the Broadway bug, and few women recover from that.

I remember the day she cinched in her belt, which showed her charms to perfection, and Mickey turned to me and said: "Why, she is a woman."

"She is fourteen," I replied. He started toward her. I caught him by the seat of the pants. "Lay a hand on her, and you will have to answer to me. She is a child."

He looked hard at me and said, "I believe you would beat me up."

"I sure would."

When he telephoned me, I had what I thought was a brain wave: "What about Victor Sassoon? He's rich as Croesus, and he's holed up through the war at the Garden of Allah." I wanted to call him at that exotic sanctuary on the Sunset Strip, where the likes of Scott Fitzgerald, Robert Benchley, and Humphrey Bogart used to frolic before it was demolished to make way for Bart Lytton's bank.

"He doesn't do anything for anybody," Victor warned me, but I couldn't be convinced until I spoke to Sassoon myself. Lend Cazelet dollars just to visit his godchild? "Certainly not," growled the old tightwad. "He's got plenty of money of his own."

So I booked Victor into the Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles to give a lecture to earn his passage money west. He stayed with the Taylors for a week, which was the last he saw of Elizabeth. Several months later the Nazis shot down the plane he was in, believing that Winston Churchill was aboard. They were halfway right. Victor was on a mission for his friend Winston Churchill.

As the years went by, I saw Elizabeth through many romances and four marriages, starting with Nicky Hilton. He was a boy, and I don't believe he'd had too much experience. On their European honeymoon he left her too much alone, though everyone wanted to meet his beautiful bride. When she came home, she took a second-story apartment in Westwood with a back entrance on an alley. Before she had a chance to sort out what had happened to her, the parade of suitors began--married men, stars. Did any of them love her and try to help? No. They used her. I'm making no excuses for her, but I'm trying to be objective.

Then she was put into another picture. She was exhausted from working too hard and too fast in the rat race on the sound stages. She was swamped with advice from everybody. She couldn't tell true from false. Thus it went from one man to another, one picture to another, until she fell in love with Michael Wilding, who was twenty years older than she. Was she unconsciously looking for a strong father? She loved her own, but he didn't stand up to his wife.

When I spoke to her about Michael, she exclaimed, "I love him, I love him, I love him."

"You don't know what love is. You don't know what you're talking about. He's sophisticated, he's gracious, but I beg you not to marry him."

"I love you, and you're going to marry me, that's all," she would say.

Then Mike left for England and Liz followed him. From that marriage came two sons, Michael and Christopher. After each birth she had to go to work too soon. Before she could face the cameras, she had to take off pounds in a hurry, just as Judy Garland did, and it weakened her health.

Mike was given a contract at Metro, her studio, but when it ran out it wasn't renewed. During this time she bought two homes, the second because the first wasn't big enough for two children, a nurse, and Mike's eighty-six-year-old father, whom she brought over from England to stay with them. The studio paid for both houses, deducting the money from her salary, which was standard practice.

I knew the marriage was over when Mike started to criticize her in public--before strangers, before anyone. She never stopped working. She was a lady, America's queen of queens, who loved her children and was a good mother to them.

She played in ??ni?!

Viides Kohtaus.

PISPA HENRIK, ANDRAEAS, JOHANNES, MAUNU, TARVO, SORRI , MUNKKEJA, RITAREITA ja SOTUREITA sotalippuineen, joihin muutamiin on risti, toisiin ristiinnaulittu Vapahtaja kuvattu, per?-ovesta.

TARVO. Ei t??ll? ket??n. Kokko lent?nyt On pes?st?ns?!

PISPA HENRIK. T?m? asunto Siis vainoojamme Kitkan on. Niin kolkko Se on kuin on sen omistajan mieli.

JOHANNES. Juur' ihan t?ll?iseks', n?in jylh?ksi Ja tuiki pime?ksi kuvasi Mun mielikuvitteluin huonetta Tuon Kristin opin julman vihollisen!

ANDRAEAS. Jok' on niin monta, monta pensasta Surmannut Herran viina-m?ess?, Ett' on h?n kadotukseen vikap?? Ja tuleen helvetin! Ei armoty?mme Voi t?ss? maassa p??st? edistym??n Niinkauan kuin h?n vehkeill?ns? riist?? Autuuden tielt? nekin harvat sielut, Joit' armo kasteen kautta l?hestyi!

JOHANNES. H?n munkistostammekin pyh?st? On surmaan sy?ssyt veljet Pietarin Ja Olavin. Jos poltto-roviolla Me h?nen hitaan tulen leimutessa Poltamme -- tuskin viel? sill?k??n On n?itten pyh?in surma kostettu!

PISPA HENRIK. Jaa, s??lim?t?in on h?n tosin ollut Ja miekkans' iskusta on moni kuollut, Mut katso Herra h?nen puolellensa Ja keksi keino h?nen autuuteensa! Sa jolle kaikki mahdollista on Ah, saata h?nkin Kristin uskohon! En tunne iloa ma suurempaa, En voittoa niin aivan jaloa, Kuin ristin vihollisten k??ntymys Luo ennen vihaamansa Vapahtajan! Ei mik??n ylev?mmin todista Uskomme taivaallista kotia!

TARVO. T?ss' ompi Kitkan harras yst?v? Ja liittolainen Sorri. T?n??nkin H?n kristitty? verta vuodatti.

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