Good evening to Mr. and Mrs. Dinnertime, and all the ships at sea. Hedda Hopper here with another stack of gossip-johnnycakes reminding you once again that it’s dinner, never supper, for those of you still scrubbing your Midwestern accents off against the California coast. Don’t forget to hit those Ds, those Ts, and most of all those punctuestimable Ps. Diction speaks louder than blurbs. Let others chatter, try to flatter, tumble down the social ladder – It doesn’t matter ’til I’ve made it patter. You may have heard that “you can’t say anything these days”,  and while that may be true for some, your faithful correspondent remains every bit as full of chatter. Let’s cross our knives and forks, and dig in. 

Have you remembered to be constantly afraid? Una Merkel does. “Everyone I know is dead,” the Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back star reveals – but still she shows up on-time every day to the set of Broadway Melody of 1936, even though filming wrapped in 1935. 

On The Town With George Brent

“I’m going to listen to The Jack Benny Program tonight. I don’t care if I’m the only one,” says George Brent, and by God if he wasn’t right to say it. 

You Bought Your Beef Of Me

Are any of the celebrities unhappy? Is there beef behind the scenes? Oh, we had beef behind the scenes in our day – wonderful dressed platters of beef, garnished with vitamin liver, and full-boiled dinner. Nowadays everything tastes like aspic. Have you noticed, how nothing tastes right these days? I hear George Brent knows something about me. What is it, George? 

A Second Look 

No one in town (or out of it, for that matter) has heard a peep from Billy Wilder lately. Could his death in 2002 be the sole reason? Or might it have something to do with that lovely brunette I sometimes see walking along the Van Ness block between Venice and Pico Boulevard? She seems so unhappy – I just know there’s something troubling her. Unburden your conscience on me, dear, it’s only 5 cents a word and you’ll feel ever so much better afterwards. I’d like to feel better afterwards for once. Do I feel better afterwards? Strange – I can’t seem to remember, although I’m sure I’ve written this column before. How do you feel? Please, do you think you can help? I can feel myself developing sympathies, certain unbearable sympathies – I’m certainly not going to apologize –

Unlikely Event 

Irene Dunne is happy as a bird these days, and well she might, or not nobody knows. Tallulah Bankhead was about to, but then she wasn’t. Vera-Ellen decided it wasn’t worth it, but I’m not among them. Is this really entertainment? What’s really in Fred MacMurray’s lunchbox? No man looks like that on cold collations. No man ought to.