Who Plays Gossip Columnist Hedda Hopper on ‘Feud: Bette and Joan’?

Judy Davis, photo: Eva Rinaldi [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

The TV series Feud: Bette and Joan is about the feud between Hollywood actress Joan Crawford (Jessica Lange) and Bette Davis (Susan Sarandon) on the set of the 1962 film What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? One of the powerful gossip columnists of the time was Hedda Hopper of The L.A. Times. She had both actresses to her home for an interview dinner and “came to the conclusion they’d missed a lot by not getting to know each other sooner,” she wrote. Hedda also observed that “Joan produced her own flask of 100-proof vodka.”

[Left: Judy Davis starred in A Passage to India based on the E.M. Forster novel]

Hedda Hopper is portrayed by the remarkable Judy Davis. The Australian-born actress is known for her roles in the films The Dressmaker (Molly Dunnage), Marie Antoinette (Comtesse de Noailles), The Break-Up (Marilyn Dean), Husbands and Wives (Sally), The Ref (Caroline), Deconstructing Harry (Lucy), Barton Fink (Audrey Taylor), and A Passage to India (Adela), among others. Davis has been nominated for two Oscars (Husbands and Wives, A Passage to India). Feud: Bette and Joan airs Sundays at 10pm on FX.