Katharine the great
The lights were dimmed at 8pm on Broadway, the day Kate died. This is not a common occurrence, but then this was no ordinary Kate. This was queen Kate, first lady of stage, screen and television, a dominant, unique and enduring figure in the arts for the last seven decades. Katharine Hepburn died at 96 having excelled in all that she endeavoured on and off the screen. What she brought to Hollywood was uniquely her own. An upper class New England heiress, her name conjures images of fierce independence, patrician liberalism, authenticity of character and none of the Hollywood vindictiveness, self-promotion, gossip and glitz. She let the Hollywood folk know from the start that she was her own woman with her own tomboyish individual style. In her first film opposite the legendary John Barrymore in 1932, she walked around the studio wearing jeans at the time when few women wore slacks. That caused such a stir, studio heads threatened to steal them unless she stopped wearing them. She refused. The studio stole them and Kate was seen walking through the RKO lot in her underwear. Her jeans were promptly returned. Even her long extramarital affair with a married man, Spencer Tracy, transcended the malign of gossip-mongers and was raised instead to the status of a legendary romance. Hepburn etched with Tracy an on-screen as well as an off-screen partnership that was just as legendary. They collaborated in a series of nine unforgettable films most successful amongst them were the romantic madcap comedies in which her independence both attracts and annoys, such as Woman of the Year (1942), Pat and Mike (1952), and Adam's Rib (1949) -- married lawyers who end up on opposite sides of an attempted murder trial - as delightful and as fresh today as it was half a century ago.
Hepburn received her first Oscar in Morning Glory, her third film in 1933, but despite regular nominations, 12 in all, her second statuette was to come 34 years later in 1967. Guess Who's Coming to Dinner was the last film with the famous duo before Tracy's death shortly thereafter. A middle aged couple with liberal ideas are put to the test when their own daughter announces she is to marry a black man. Ground breaking in its approach to interracial marriages, the film was nominated for 10 Academy Awards, giving Kate her second Oscar at age 60. She forged another memorable partnership with the debonair Cary Grant in a series of screwball comedies such as Bringing Up Baby (1938) and Holiday (1938). Despite these successes Hepburn was voted by the Independent Theatre Owners of America as box-office poison together with such luminaries as Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, and Fred Astaire.
Fearing it would end her film career, she bought out her contract with RKO and went back to her theatre roots on Broadway. Kate could well afford to do that. She was an heiress to the Corning Glass-Houghton's fortune, which she shared with her cousins, estimated at $500 million. Back on Broadway Hepburn dazzled audiences again. Playwright Philip Barry wrote the Philadelphia Story specifically for her. As Tracy Lord, she brought her arrogance, her aloofness and her 'virgin goddess' image to the part, the perfect vehicle for a Hepburn comeback. Her then boyfriend Howard Hughes advised her to buy the film rights. The result was a triumphant smash hit that received six Oscar nominations. Kate was back on top. Intelligence comes to the rescue when talent fails and not every talent possesses the intelligence of Katharine Hepburn.
Broadway was her haven and her home; she often returned between her 50 films to appear in 33 plays throughout her career. Her last Broadway appearance was in West Side Waltz in 1981. In 1969 she achieved a major success on Broadway with her portrayal of Coco Chanel in the musical Coco. Both women are credited with putting women in pants, literally.
Born 12 May, 1907 to Kit Houghton, a feminist heiress, and Tom Hepburn, a surgeon, Katharine Houghton Hepburn grew up in an affluent intellectual ambiance unlike many Hollywood types. She attended Bryn Mawr, a highly prestigious girls' college where she became active in theatrical productions. There she met and married Ludlow Ogden Smith in 1928, to whom she was "a perfect pig" by her own admission. They were divorced in 1934. Kate moved to New York and in her first play The Big Pond she was fired after opening night. But she had left enough of an impression to find regular work on Broadway, where she would become the reigning goddess for the next half century. I was fortunate enough to see her on Broadway in Bernard Shaw's The Millionairess in 1954. Her stage presence was nothing short of magical. She seemed to fly when she would dance, dance when she would walk. The 15 minute standing ovation was electrifying. The surprise was that her tears flowed as fast and as freely as ours. Katharine the great had no equal. But it was her ageless talent on screen that left the masses mesmerised for decades. She was unforgettable as the prim Victorian missionary opposite Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen (1951); the willful Eleanor of Aquitane to Peter O'Toole's Henry II in The Lion in Winter (1968); or the vulnerable spinster falling in love with Rossano Brazzi on a Venetian gondola in Summertime (1955).
At 84, Kate decided to write her autobiography which she entitled Me, promising to reveal all. What emerged was the image of the archetypical actor, narcissistic, ambitious, ruthless, rarely concerned about people other than herself. She did not love lightly but loved selectively and with all her heart. Other than Spencer Tracy, the only deep love she felt was the love for her parents. She witnessed little of life at the film colony and knew little about fellow actors, cared little for their goings and comings. She had one regret, her inability to reach Tracy's darkness, his "chronic and at times alcoholic depression". She is angry at a wife who would not let go, and at the devout Roman Catholic who could never end the charade of his marriage. Of all the battles she fought, and she won them all, she had a deep remorse for not fighting the one battle that could have changed her life, "the one that may have mattered most". She never asked Tracy to straighten out their relationship and when asked she said she did not even remember if he ever told her he loved her.
In 1996 she gave up her New York townhouse that she had kept since the 1930s and retreated to a family mansion in Connecticut where she lived a recluse until her death last week. She was voted the most admired woman in America in 1985, and the number one favourite actress by The American Film Institute. The only actress to win four Academy Awards, three of which came after the age of 60. Though not usually considered glamorous, she possessed a style that was unmistakable, at once simple and familiar yet complex and unique. Her high cheek bones, her long flowing auburn hair, her haughty demeanour and her upper class polish remain her beloved trademarks.
The world joined the US in mourning the passing of an American symbol of courage and class. The Washington Post wrote of her "breathtaking talent and unsurpassed durability." Quoting writer Christopher Anderson "she is the greatest star, the greatest actress that Hollywood has ever produced." Even President Bush took time off to eulogise her "intelligence and wit.....one of the nation's artistic treasures".
With her death the curtain descends on an American idol as well as on the Golden Age of Hollywood .The galaxy of great movie stars has ended!
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : 10 - 16 July 2003 (Issue No. 646)
Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/646/pe2.htm