Word: hollywood
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Hedda Haber," as she is known in some quarters, often employs the "blind" gossip item, using initials that have meaning in Hollywood and whet curiosity elsewhere. The device makes some of her columns look like alphabet soup. But, she insists, "the public loves to guess." In one of her columns, she told how "Miss PP" (for Prim and Proper) berated "Mr. VV" (Visually Virile) for what she called "his on-screen presence" while shooting a picture. "But I'm the leading lady, dear," the actress was reported to have remarked to her costar. To many in Hollywood, the initials...
Such animosity does not keep her from all the best parties, a rich source of Hollywood dirt, and she does not let her readers forget it. "You sort of get the impression that most parties Joyce writes about are being given for her," says one student of her column. "Not that she thinks so, but so many people are coming up to her to say this or that or sitting next to her (Joyce does not sit next to people; they sit next to her) that you get the feeling she must be the most important person there...
Columnist Haber has a sure instinct for social snobbery. As she analyzes it, Hollywood has two kinds of parties: "A" and "B". An A party is served by the host's staff, starts at 9 p.m., and calls for either no tie or black tie. A B party is catered by Chasen's, starts at 7:30, requires a dark suit and has a receiving line. As for her own parties, they are a mixture that rates about...
Every top Hollywood columnist needs a rival with whom to feud, and Haber has found one in Rona Barrett, a TV gossipist for the Metromedia stations. She watches the Barrett show with competitive pride. "Oh, that's all wrong," Haber will scoff at one of Rona's items. Or "I had that but didn't use it." In her success, Haber may face a danger. It was she who wrote in an unkind piece on Barbra Streisand: "Once you are a superstar, there are two choices open to you: you can become a bore or a monster...
...commissary ("We've got a nice Valley of the Dolls Salad," suggests the waitress), the Hollywood types are naively shocked when told they will have to pay $2,500 for a week's display of Dr. Dolittle record albums in the windows of a Manhattan store. And how to get Rex Harrison to go to South America to plug the movie? Well, suggests one publicist, since the lobby-display pushmi-pulyus were made in Peru, "I think I can get him decorated by the Peruvian government for promoting cottage industry . . . The Condor of the Andes or something like...