Hedda Hopper is much better known in the U.S., as her name was practically synonymous with 'gossip columnist' for decades (she even does a cameo as herself in the 1950 movie SUNSET BLVD).

And I had to throw in another fictional purveyor of scandal and ruination so Milverton wouldn't be lonely! In A SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL Lady Sneerwell's very first speech talks of how her own reputation was ruined as a young woman by gossip, so she spends her life inflicting that ruination on others.