Cinema: Meow!

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When powerful Gossipist Hedda Hopper chatters to her 30 million newspaper readers, Hollywood's biggest bigwigs fear to talk back. Turning to its daily trade papers on Valentine's Day last week, Hollywood gawked at two full-page ads. Neatly encircled by a heart, the ads carried a rudely unsentimental message for Hedda from Actress Joan Bennett, wife of Producer Walter (Joan of Arc) Wanger.

On one side was an excerpt from a Hedda column gibing at Actress Joan Fontaine. On the other was an excerpt from a column by Hearst's Harry Crocker, frequent escort of Actress Fontaine, noting an "inane attack in print by a certain female." "Hollywood," Crocker had written, "realizes that [such] ridiculous outbreaks are the result of her years of frustration as a jobless actress." Below, signed Joan Bennett, was the query: "This COULDN'T be you, could it, Hedda?"

Later that day Actress Bennett's chauffeur drew up to Hedda's home and delivered another remembrance: a live skunk (deodorized). Sniffed Joan, still smarting over a recent crack at her in Hedda's column: "I've had enough of her lip."

But if she thought to get Hedda Hopper into a hissing match with a skunk, she had underestimated her fox. Baring her claws a bit, Hedda told a newsman: "I didn't think the Wangers could afford the ad ... I'm completely surprised but completely amused." To her readers she sweetly announced: "It was a good publicity skunk and beautifully behaved. I christened it Joan." Then she gave the animal to the James Masons, who had been looking for one "as a companion for their nine cats. Seems there is a great affinity between cats and skunks."