The East Coast positively CRAWLED with WASPY debutante types in the thirties, all of them emulating the dissipated and well-fed (though always-dieting) daughters of the Very Rich... and any one of the tens of thousands would have been eligible for stardom, thanks to a combination of luck, looks, and ready bucks. In fact, many DID manage to scale the studio walls, much to our amusement!

In retrospect, ONE stands out-- Katharine Hepburn, she of the craggy disposition, vociferous opinions, and non-stop chatter... and she continued it for more than six decades!

Hepburn was raised in a crowded, happy, liberal house. Mr. Hepburn was a successful urologist, and her Mother an extremely intelligent "suffragette."  This bucolic lifestyle was seriously marred for Kate when she discovered the body of her older brother Tom, who had managed to hang himself in 1921. Kate became her father' favorite after that, claiming Tom's date of birth in his honor. The tomboyish Kate, now calling herself "Jimmy," insisted on shaving her head every summer up until she turned fourteen.

Kate decided to pursue acting while attending Bryn Mawr. While Dad may have supported a woman's right to a career, he thought acting was a useless pursuit. Kate had plenty of drive and determination, two qualities which probably outweighed her talent, and when her high-pitched, keening voice resulted in roles not worthy of what she considered herself deserving of, she took up speech lessons with Frances Robinson-Duff. Still, she was fired from her first production in 1928 because she insisted on speaking her lines with machine-gun rapidity. As Dorothy Parker once said of Kate's work in The Lake: "Miss Hepburn ran the emotional gamut from A to B."

In 1928 she married Ludlow Ogden Smith, a marriage which endured for six years.

She managed finally to make a splash on stage in The Warrior's Husband, and was miraculously called to Hollywood. Very quickly, Kate adapted to a life onscreen and received her first Oscar in 1933, for Morning Glory. And she fought to stay at the pinnacle of Hollywood's pantheon, but RKO starred her in so many awful movies that she was considered by exhibitors "box office poison," along with Joan Crawford and many others.

Another miracle occurred in 1940 when she bought and starred in the film version of The Philadelphia Story. A romance with Howard Hughes began and ended during this time, but Kate soon met her love match in Spencer Tracy, in 1942-- a man with whom she orchestrated a relationship for many, many years. (When first encountering her, Tracy mistook her directness for aggressive lesbianism!) Over the years, Kate always put Spencer's interests ahead of her own, which was a remarkable feat considering how independent she was. This was Love, she felt... however, Spencer was married and his Irish-Catholic lifestyle precluded any thought of divorce. Still, their special and always-accessible onscreen relationship stands today as the yardstick against which all other starring duos are measured.

They remained lovers for thirty years, until Tracy's death in 1967, and starred in nine movies. Kate won her second Oscar in 1967 for Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, which was her last vehicle with Tracy.  A third followed in 1968 for The Lion in Winter, and in 1981 was awarded a FOURTH Oscar for On Golden Pond.

As with any actress, unremarkable roles followed, but Kate's style was never to try and cadge the love and respect of the filmgoing public-- her style was never one that demanded love from an audience, only a little respect for her talents. Kate today rules her roost with the panache and gruff no-nonsense ways of a woman whose gift for acting and love for simply being alive stands as a beacon for all who have ever wished they could stand in the limelight in front of an adoring multitude.

With her passing in 2003 at the age of 96, the movie-going world is that less richer, though we are fortunate to be able to view the legacy she graced us with. We like to think of her sailing toward glory in the barge she made famous in Lion in Winter, regally accepting the plaudits of her peers...

written by Jimmy

 

DVDs