Katharine Hepburn 1907 – 2003

A Bill of Divorcement 1932 Directed by George Cukor RKO B/W

Hepburn and Barrymore

The stage version of Clemence Dane’s play starred Katharine Cornell but casting Katharine Hepburn in the film version created a tug of war at the studio. Producer David O. Selznick was opposed to casting her declaring she was unsuitable and “sexually repugnant”(I don’t think he liked her wearing slacks). Director George Cukor, meeting her for the first time, made two tests of her before he was satisfied that she was photogenic (he decided the camera actually loved her). John Barrymore simply dismissed her as part of the scenery.

The Hollywood Reporter said of her performance “There is a new star on the cinema horizon and her name is Katharine Hepburn”. But when the picture wrapped, Kate told her co-star “Mr. Barrymore, I am not going to act with you again”. He answered “My dear, you still haven’t.”

Christopher Strong 1933 Directed by Dorothy Arzner RKO B/W

Here was a role that suited Kate to a tee and she was also working with one of the few women directors in Hollywood . But the storyline caused Kate such emotional pain that she was frequently absent while doing the final scenes. Her character, a flamboyant, Amelia Earhart type aviator, becomes pregnant after getting involved with a prominent married man. Realizing the scandal could ruin his life, she takes her own life by removing her oxygen mask at an altitude of 30,000 feet…a slow strangulation. It recreated horrible echoes of her brother Tom’s death.

Off the set, she was having a torrid romance with much-married Leland Hayward and wondering how to let hubby “Luddy” down gently before going to Mexico for a divorce.

Morning Glory 1933 Directed by Lowell Sherman RKO B/W

Kate and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.

This movie won a Best Actress Oscar for Kate even though the premise of an unknown becoming a star without even rehearsing the role was a bit fanciful!

When a young actress , Eva Lovelace, has a bit too much champagne at a party for theater producers and does a soliloquy from Hamlet (plus the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet! ) she positively stuns producer Adolphe Menjou. When the temperamental star of his show walks out, who else but Miss Lovelace takes over and saves the day. But Adolphe loses her to Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.

Kate’s performance was glowing and so were the reviews. No morning glory was our Kate! She bloomed all movie long and deserved that gold idol!

Little Women 1933 Directed by George Cukor RKO B/W

Kate with Frances Dee, Joan Bennett and Jean Parker.

Kate and Cukor had become best friends but there was still that element of sparring between star and director when they were working together. However, she was still invited to those famous Sunday lunches along with his other “collectibles”… fascinating women including Ethel Barrymore, Fanny Brice, Ina Claire and Tallulah Bankhead. But even Tallulah never had the nerve to swim nude in his pool. Kate never batted an eye!

She loved the role of tomboy Jo Marsh in this Louise Alcott classic but planned to return to Broadway as soon as her commitment to RKO was over. In the meantime, she went home to settle up with Luddy and rent the brownstone townhouse in Manhattan . She would live there for years.

Alice Adams 1935 Directed by George Stevens RKO B/W

Dinner at home!

Kate had an embarrassing first meeting with director Stevens….she was in a parked car kissing Charles Boyer. Stevens looked in the window, introduced himself and disappeared. The next meeting was not great either….she was home sick in bed (she had rented a house high up on Benedict Canyon’s Angelo Drive ) and had to greet Stevens and producer Pandro Berman in her pajamas!

Of course, Kate was always at her best playing socialites or someone at the top of their heap. Here she did very well as a gal only passing for a socialite with wealth and position. But she managed to fall in love with wealthy Fred MacMurray and she gets him…. and a Best Actress nomination to boot!

Note: Don’t miss Hattie McDaniel as the tipsy maid-for-hire serving course after course of steaming hot food on one of the summer’s hottest nights and spilling it as she goes!

Mary of Scotland 1936 Directed by John Ford RKO B/W

Mary (Hepburn) versus Elizabeth(Florence Eldridge)

Maxwell Anderson’s play had been a stage triumph for Helen Hayes and it was assumed that she would take it all the way to Hollywood . When Hayes seemed reluctant to leave Broadway, RKO bought the screen rights for Kate who even looked the part with her red hair and regal height. But even with Ford directing and Frederic March (as Bothwell) and Florence Eldridge (Elizabeth) in the cast, it was not the box office smash the studio had hoped for. Audiences were tiring of period pieces.

But the picture put Kate and John Ford on the same set for the first time. Other cast members who had worked with Ford before and also knew Kate held their breath. But something quite unique happened. The two joked, sang, told stories and even insulted each other..but they also laughed together and fell in love. That affection lasted until John died in 1973. Once Kate truly loved, she never took it back.

Bringing Up Baby 1938 Directed by Howard Hawks RKO B/W

Kate and "Baby"

This was Hepburn’s first screwball comedy and she didn’t quite know how to handle it. Cary Grant, on the other hand, had perfect comedic timing. Hawks tried to get Kate to play the role straight instead of trying too hard to be funny. Finally he brought in Ziegfeld Follies comic Walter Catlett. Catlett was a brilliant mimic and took Kate’s place, using her mannerisms but in deadpan to show her how to deliver the lines. Kate was so impressed she told Hawks “Hire that guy and keep him around…I need him.” After that Kate played the role as though she had no idea she was being funny. The picture was a hit then and a classic favorite even today.

In the meantime Kate was in negotiations to do “Jane Eyre” on Broadway but RKO wanted her to do “Holiday” for Columbia . That was a flop and she was derided in the press. She left RKO, gave up her mountain house and went home to Fenwick.

The Philadelphia Story 1940 Directed by George Cukor MGM B/W

Kate with John Howard, Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart

Kate had been away from Los Angeles for two years playing this role on Broadway. When she came back to do the film version, Europe was at war, John Ford was in the Navy and Kate owned the movie rights to the hit screenplay. Producer Joseph Mankiewicz and screenwriter Donald Ogden Stewart set up the storyline more fully including a brief silent sequence that shows why Dexter and Tracy broke up.

It was the perfect comeback for Kate, breaking box office records at New York ’s Music Hall and earning $1.3 million in profits. Then Kate, who was heading back to Broadway, suddenly found a project on her own. It was “Woman of the Year”!

Woman of the Year 1942 Directed by George Stevens MGM B/W

Kate and Spencer together for the first time!

Kate Hepburn had gotten pretty good at selling L. B. Mayer a bill of goods…the price she asked and got for rights to this script were the highest ever paid by MGM. And she did it without ever revealing it had been written by a rather obscure duo…..Ring Lardner, Jr. and Michael Kanin (who probably had some help from brother Garson). And she got Spencer Tracy, a perfect “counter” ( the expression John Ford used to describe a strongly contrasting actor) to the fast-paced Kate.

The day they met is legend. It was outside the Thalberg Building at MGM. She was on her way in and Tracy and Joseph Mankiewicz were on their way out to lunch. “Mr. Tracy, I think you are a little short for me” said Kate. Mankiewicz answered back laughing “He’ll cut you down to size.”

Ironically, Spencer Tracy was one actor John Ford had respected and considered his friend and now he had the only woman Ford would ever love.

Undercurrent 1946 Directed by Vincente Minnelli MGM B/W

Hepburn and Robert Mitchum

This script was plucked from the pages of Woman’s Home Companion where it should have stayed. It was also a waste of star power. Kate played a New England spinster who marries a charismatic but also psychopathic millionaire played by Robert Taylor. Robert Mitchum played the brother he hated (Mitch gets about 10 minutes of screen time).

While Kate was in Hollywood, Spencer stayed in New York and, like the fable about the mice and the absent cat, Spence got himself in trouble. Lonely and depressed, he went on one of the worst binges of his life. He woke up in Doctors’ Hospital but, before they had a chance to dry him out, a crony smuggled him another bottle and he went into DTs. He had to be put in a strait-jacket and secured in a private room on the women’s floor to keep out the press.

Adam’s Rib 1949 Directed by George Cukor MGM B/W

Kate, Spencer Tracy and Judy Holliday

This film was considered the best Hepburn and Tracy picture since “Woman of the Year”. Kate showed she was indeed her mother’s daughter by allowing her character Amanda Bonner to engage the women’s rights movement with the same energy and passion. But, again, it was the battle of the sexes that made the movie work…Kate vs. Spence as two lawyers on opposite sides of a case of attempted murder.

Off the set, Cukor was planning a project of his own…building three rental cottages on the lower garden area of his estate. Kate thought that was a great place for Spencer to live where Cukor could watch out for him while she was away. Spencer agreed to rent one of the cottages without suspecting her motives.

On March 17, 1951 while Kate was visiting her family, Mrs. Hepburn died of a massive stroke. After the funeral, Dr. Hepburn burned all of her books and papers on suffrage and birth control. “What is past is past” he said.

The African Queen 1951 Directed by John Huston UA Color

...with Humphrey Bogart in "The African Queen"

No fancy sets in the Congo ! A crew of 40 that included stars, director, cameramen and equipment boarded a raft supported over several canoes and cruised up and down the river. Bungalows of bamboo and palm leaves were constructed by the natives to house them. But Kate became violently ill after they arrived from drinking contaminated water and the director himself nursed her back to health.

Everyone in the cast caught dysentery …except Bogart who never touched water and brushed his teeth with Scotch (even the bugs wouldn’t bite him). But Bogie said of Kate “She’s got ants in her pants, mildew in her shoes and she’s still cheerful. She doesn’t drink and she breezes through it all as though it was a weekend in Connecticut ”.

Kate returned to New York on September 22 nd, 1951 to find her father had remarried almost 3 months before…to one of his surgical nurses. He now had a wife who stayed home and took care of him and the house!

Summertime 1955 Directed by David Lean UA Color

Kate and Rossano Brazzi

Another spinster role for Kate in this film adapted from Arthur Laurent’s play “The Time of the Cuckoo”. She plays Jane Hudson, who is in vacationing in Venice, when she falls in love with a handsome Italian played by Rossano Brazzi. She finds out too late that Rossano is also married.

Kate was terribly lonely in Venice and the heat bothered her there even more than the hot African sun. And it had been four years since she had been before a camera in “Pat and Mike”. She suffered a close call with a nervous collapse and spent time at Fenwick after the picture wrapped. She also had to get over Tracy ’s brief affair with his “Plymouth Adventure” co-star Gene Tierney. It was not the first time nor would it be the last.

John Ford wrote her an unusual letter while she was at home. He told her his days were numbered and he wanted her to visit Ireland with him. But John was 17 years too late.

Long Day’s Journey into Night 1962 Directed by Sidney Lumet Embassy B/W

Kate as Mary Tyrone

An exciting film with an exciting cast despite the disturbing subject matter. O’Neill’s play was shot in its entirety. Producer Eli Landau wanted Spencer Tracy for the role of Mary Tyrone’s husband when he cast Kate but Tracy turned him down. Ralph Richardson was cast instead with Jason Robards as the alcoholic son and Dean Stockwell as the son dying of TB. This was Robard’s breakout film after years on the stage.

Kate gave a heartrending performance as morphine-addicted Mary, grieving, hysterical and desperately trying to hide her descent into the darkness. She was nominated for the Best Actress Oscar but lost to Anne Bancroft (The Miracle Worker).

It would be five years before Kate would make another motion picture.

This was the first film she had done since Tracy ’s death and Kate now had the tables turned on her. She had to play the betrayed wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, whose husband Henry II had taken another woman as his mistress. In other words, Kate had to take on the mantle of a Louise Tracy or a Mary Ford and make her audience empathize with her humiliation. Kate took the challenge. She was also very pleased that it gave her a chance to work opposite Peter O’Toole. The role won her a third Best Actress Oscar. Peter is still waiting for one of his own.

The first part of the film was shot in Ireland . It reminded Kate again of John Ford and their plans to see Ireland together. Her loneliness was eased a bit when John Huston invited her to his home in Galway .

In June, 1970, frail and ill, John Ford traveled to New York to see Kate play “Coco” on Broadway. She returned the favor when she got back to California and paid him a visit in March, 1973. He was now bedridden. Ford asked Kate if she knew he loved her and she replied softly that she did. It was the last time she saw him alive.

On Golden Pond 1981 Directed by Mark Rydell 20th Century Fox Color

Kate and Henry Fonda

Henry Fonda and Kate Hepburn had been in Hollywood fior decades but they had never met. Then, just before shooting was to start on the film, Fonda was in the basement of the Fox soundstage when he recalls “Kate just came in, smiled, looked directly at me and said ‘It’s about time’.”

Kate gave Henry a special gift on the first day of shooting…Spencer’s battered brown crushable felt hat, Tracy’s favorite. Fonda proudly wore it in the film.

Both of them won Best Actor Oscars, Kate’s fourth and Hank’s first. But he was too ill to accept and daughter Jane Fonda accepted for him. He died a few months later.