Myrna Loy HATED Katharine Hepburn: "She was shrill and awful all the time"

She says “she was showing off all the time,” not “she was shrill and awful.”

No one ever said Katherine Hepburn was lovable and cozy. But no one called her a bitch either. I think she was pretty much what we imagine. Sentimental, loyal, selfish, spirited, bossy, not as intelligent as she imagined, vain about not being vain and utterly fascinating. A progressive liberal with some pretty old fashioned ideas. Healthy, disciplined, forgiving. Confident in her attention seeking. Feminine, angular, specific. Competitive.

I saw that Cavett BTS and I really despise old bats like Hepburn who think everyone is supposed to cater to their demands and act like everyone in the world is their employee.

Crater face

Hepburn wasn't beloved. I've been reading diaries and memoirs lately, mostly writers, and the only time Hepburn comes up is if someone has to work with her, and she was always astonishingly rude while being offended if someone even glanced at her wrong.

There is a reason Hepburn excelled as Tracy Lord and as Eleanor of Aquitaine.

Myrna Loy was a great friend and defender of Joan Crawford.

Myrna Loy was a cunt.

Myrna Loy was never even nominated! Not once! She made 60 films before they gave her something to do.

Love Myrna Loy

Is that a new Screenland magazine? Is there any new pictures of Myrna Loy in there? She's my favorite picture star!

What kind of name is Myrna?

@r2, "Confident in her attention seeking. Feminine..."

Feminine?

R12 the only Myrna I've ever "met" was the recurring character 'Myrna Morgenstein' on RHODA.

You should be asking, what kind of name is Loy. I think her real last name was Williams, “a good Welsh name” she said. Loy made her sound more exotic and she was cast as a vamp in silent movies.

Who’s the HACK interviewing Loy? She’s clearly out of it. She couldn’t say what she learned about acting from Tracy. “How would I know?”

It's Professor Alan Greenberg. He's not a hack.

I like Hepburn in some things, greatly dislike her in others. She seems as though she'd be a very tiresome person to have known and been around.

Geezer posting. This is even more prehistoric than the fucking Golden Girls. Oldsters are fucking gross.

Always LOVED Myrna Loy, beginning with those Thin Man movies. She was magnificently progressive in her racial attitudes even back in the 30s. She went on to be co-chairman of the Advisory Council of the National Committee Against Discrimination in Housing in the 50s and an early member of UNESCO in the 40s. She was also a remarkable comedic actress and one of the loveliest movies stars from Hollywood's Golden Age.

The majority of people don’t know nor remember her.

The majority of people don’t know or remember her.

[quote]R12 What kind of name is Myrna?

In the novel “Inside Daisy Clover” the heroine names her daughter Myrna.

R22, SO. WHAT?

Myrna is an Irish name; Mirna is a pretty common Slavic name.

Remember Mirna and Schmirna? Good times.

Katharine was so tired and overrated.

Both great film actresses and Myrna was not jealous of Tracy. Surely she knew the truth. Silly.

She doesn't sound genuinely hateful towards Katharine Hepburn; she's exaggeratedly making a joke about how much she (Myrna) loved Spencer Tracy. She also sounds like she's halfway through a pitcher of martinis.

She wrote someone back who sent her a letter praising her to the heavens. The letter ran as follows: Dear "M", Thank you for your enthusiasm - and good luck to you - Sincerely, Katharine Hepburn.

The 1991 recipient of an honorary Academy Award, she was never nominated for a competitive Oscar in her entire career.

Hepburn created her "romance" with the closeted Spence Tracy out of whole cloth after his death.

It made them both seem fascinating I guess, but I doubt 90% of what she reported about it other than a close friendship. I find it difficult to see many men were attracted to her.

Myrna was John Dillinger's favorite movie star; he wen to see her film "Manhattan Melodrama" the night he was gunned down in the incident with the Lady in Red (I think as a decoy) outside of a Chicago movie theater.

"went"

Love Myrna and can't stand that full-of-herself closet lesbian cunt. So Myrna team here.

R29 is right, Miss Loy sounds a bit tipsy in that interview.

[quote] Myrna Loy was a great friend and defender of Joan Crawford.

I guess that makes her an idiot.

[quote] Who’s the HACK interviewing Loy? She’s clearly out of it. She couldn’t say what she learned about acting from Tracy. “How would I know?”

OMG. I thought I mis-heard that. Why would anyone continue an interview with someone too drunk to give a coherent answer?

Myrna Loy was a bisexual who had some sort of grudge against lesbians.

[quote]Miss Loy sounds a bit tipsy in that interview.

Nearly all of those Old Hollywood bitches drank

She was Katherine Fucking Hepburn. I imagine humility went out the window when she survived being called box office poison and went on to garner a clutch of Oscars.

And in an era were actresses were a highly disposable commodity, she thrived while so many other actresses were destroyed by fame. I wish there had been many more like her.

Bette Davis was better than both of them. Davis's Cavett interview was a riot, she was such an intelligent woman with a quick, sharp mind.

And Merna Neudorf.

Why did Myrna Loy get top billing in "The Best Years Of Our Lives"? In importance to the story, she's probably fifth after Dana Andrews, Frederic March, Teresa Wright and Harold Russell.

And although she had that cool, witty sophisticate role down, she had very little range beyond that.

[quote] Why did Myrna Loy get top billing in "The Best Years Of Our Lives"? In importance to the story, she's probably fifth after Dana Andrews, Frederic March, Teresa Wright and Harold Russell.

because she was the biggest star in the film. She was well know to be FDR's favorite actress.

R25 What is a "Loy?

How tall was this bitch?

[quote] Why did Myrna Loy get top billing in "The Best Years Of Our Lives

1. Because the wily Willy Wyler and Mr Goldwyn wanted to sell it as a 'womens picture' and not as a depressing wartime drama.

2. Because Myrna's agent insisted she get top billing because she was grumpy at playing somebody's mother. (Was it Teresa Wright? Did Greer Garson get an Oscar for playing Teresa Wright's mother in that other Willy Wyler schmaltz-fest????)

Myrna was coherent early in the morning, prior to having her first drink at 8 AM. Beyond that, it was downhill. A bitter, nasty, and selfish human being.

Myrna finds Luckies easy on her throat.

Katharine was the most serious about her craft. She did Shakespeare on stage and continued doing stage work pretty late on. That was a discipline that Bette had long lost.

[quote]Hepburn created her "romance" with the closeted Spence Tracy out of whole cloth after his death.

R32 She made no movies between 1962 and 1967 in order to care for Tracy. She came back in '67 only to make Guess Who's Coming To Dinner with him. She didn't do that for publicity.

R44 Myrna Loy got top billing in The Best Years Of Our Lives because she asked for it as a condition of appearing in the film.

I believe Loy retired from the screen for a few years during WWII to help in the war effort selling bonds, doing charity work, etc. So The Best Years of Our Lives was a huge comeback for her and made the film even more of an event, and a very good reason for her top billing.

And, ultimately, it's her big scene in the beginning of the film where she instinctively recognizes the presence of her husband, played by Frederic March, coming back home from the war, that became the iconic moment that sold the film to millions worldwide, who experienced something similar in their own lives.

What's odd and unique about her stardom, however, is that, as popular as she was in the 1930s and 40s, she never carried a film by herself. Unlike, Crawford, Davis, Stanwyck, Hepburn and several others, Myrna was always paired with an equally popular male star. and despite TBYOOL, she usually got 2nd billing.

What I find odd about her comments about Tracy and Hepburn is that Myrna had already acted with Tracy for several years at MGM before Hepburn came into his life. So if there'd been a spark, I can only imagine it had already been lit.

And for someone whose movie rep was based on "The Perfect Wife", wasn't she married like 5 or 6 times?

r51 Bette had more range and was just more interesting to watch on screen. Hepburn always played a variation of herself.

I wouldn't say Bette was more interesting, r54, but she did do a wider variety of roles than Kate. And Bette would go there where Kate wouldn't.

[quote] Bette …did do a wider variety of roles than Kate

She didn't do Transvestite or Chinese like Kate.

No "star" actress would've dared to play Baby Jane the way Davis played it. She was fucking fearless.

Myrna's autobiography (Being And becoming) is a very good read. She was steadfastly liberal and she had more of a life outside of the movies than many of her peers. Much of the 2nd half is devoted to her work with the Red Cross and UNESCO, and raising hell against the HUAC.

Interestingly, "Loy in 1937 and 1938 took an interest in, but did not formally join, the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League for Defense of American Democracy. In late 1938, after Kristallnacht in Germany, Melvyn Douglas, active in the Anti-Nazi League, organized a petition calling for the economic boycott of Germany. It was signed by 56 directors, producers, writers and actors, including Loy, Edward G. Robinson, Joan Crawford, Claude Rains, James Cagney, Groucho Marx, and, Henry Fonda. Later, Louis B. Mayer admonished her not to make public statements against Hitler because the studio had receipts in Germany that it wanted to claim."

Her comments throughout about Joan Crawford are touching, and she said (not in the book, I think, but while publicizing it) that she loved some of the "monsters" that scandalous books were being written about, saying "these 'so-called monsters' loved the movies and cared enough to do their best to make their films lasting achievements." (something like that)

Listening to that interview it sounds like she's had a few, and at her age a few drinks probably knocked her on her ass, but for the most part she was an admirable woman. It's been a while since I read it but she pulled no punches when it came to Nancy Reagan, and IIRC, she couldn't understand how Gary Cooper (whom she'd known growing up in Helena, Montana) could have become someone who'd name names for HUAC.

R58 Did Cooper name names? I know he was a "friendly witness" but who did he name?

What's interesting is that Jeff Corey (character actor), who was blacklisted, said in his autobiography that Cooper and Patricia Neal came to his acting classes - he became an acting teacher to make a living in Los Angeles after he was blacklisted. He had nice things to say about Cooper, who also apparently had no problem doing High Noon, which was produced by Stanley Kramer's company, directed by Fred Zinnemann and written by Carl Foreman - all lefties.

R56, She sure did.

[quote]Hepburn created her "romance" with the closeted Spence Tracy out of whole cloth after his death.

Spencer Tracy was not "closeted." There's a good reason for that: he wasn't gay. He was very much into women, having affairs with stars like Ingrid Bergman and Loretta Young.

[quote]Hepburn created her "romance" with the closeted Spence Tracy out of whole cloth after his death.

That's bullshit.

In the era where Ingrid Bergman and Liz Taylor almost had their careers destroyed by being in relationships with married men, the idea that Kate Hepburn would think concocting a romance with a married man who had a disabled child would be great PR is ridiculous at best.

Myrna had good taste in men.

Fah Lo See (drooling over the drugged, writhing, near-naked Charles Starrett):

[quote]He is not entirely unhandsome, is he, my father?

Boris Karloff as Fu Manchu:

[quote[For a white man, no.

I never liked Katharine Hepburn's face or weird voice/accent. Off putting on multiple levels. Kind of like George Clooney.

r62 Katharine Hepburn didn't talk about her relationship with Spencer Tracy, whether it was real or imagined, until the 1970s I believe. It was not public knowledge until then, and of course by then the times had changed a lot.

[quote] Tracy … was very much into women, having affairs with stars like Ingrid Bergman

I refuse to believe this baseless gossip.

Any gossip about any adultery between these two box-office stars would have made world headlines. I don't believe it.

Next year will mark the 30th anniversary of Myna Loy's death. Hepburn has only been dead for 19 years

Myrna was no dummy. She, like most people in the movie industry in Hollywood back in the day, knew Hepburn was a closeted bull dyke. She also knew that Hepburn and Tracy (also a homo) were just putting on an act to cover for their private predilections.

R63 That quote shows how the Hollywood money-men were happy to use near-naked men as sex-objects to lure the masses.

And Starrett was hot even when fully-clothed.

^

(I'm waiting for an eldergay to tell us if that little man is Russ Tamblyn's father)

Why yes it is, R70, and I wonder if Tamblyn is here wearing a codpiece and displaying his buttocks?

[quote] Any gossip about any adultery between these two box-office stars would have made world headlines. I don't believe it.

Not all Hollywood affairs were highly publicized. A lot of them went on behind closed doors. Ingrid Bergman was not a big star then, She and Tracy were working together on "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"; they started spending a lot of time together during non-working hours. It was a casual affair for both of them. By they way, Bergman also had an affair with Gary Cooper, also while they were making a film together. That one didn't get publicized either.

Whores

Very few Hollywood affairs were highly publicized. Grace Kelly nearly broke up Ray Milland's marriage. I don't think it came out at the time. Tracy's affair with Loretta Young did go public, though, and there were a lot of headlines. Look it up. But people who think things then were like they are now don't know much. The Hollywood press didn't usually report affairs. The Tracy-Hepburn affair was unknown to the public until a leak in the 1960s.

R72 More unsubstantiated gossip about "affairs".

Does an affair equal 'cocktails-and-laughter' or 'penis-in-vagina'?

R75 Why don't you do some research, yourself? Ingrid Bergman's affairs are well documented. She had an affair with Spencer Tracy.

The only source for "Spencer Tracy was gay" is Darwin Porter, whose entire career consists of waiting until stars die, then claiming they were gay. Meanwhile, there are MANY sources for Tracy's numerous affairs with women, including his long-running one with Hepburn.

Anyone who chooses to believe Porter rather than the mountain of contrary reports is a fool.

Ingrid Bergman did not have an affair with Spencer Tracy.

Myrna Loy was jealous of KH--her fame, love from critics, roles, etc.

KH’s deep love for Spenser was a matter of common knowledge before the 1970s.

I recall more than one reviewer of “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” suggesting that Hepburn’s teary eyed performance in that film (released in ‘67) was due to her knowledge that Spenser was dying.

^ [quote] Spenser… Spenser

Spencer… Spencer

Back to back, baby.

Chinee and Whimpering Abandoned Wife

That's ACTING!

Myrna Loy had more class than did any other actress in her generation of high-studio-era greats.

It may have cut her range but her presence, once she was spared the yellow-face horrors of the times, was always welcome on the screen. Like spotting a great friend in a room of posers.

Myrna Loy was typecast as the exotic vamp/femme fatale in her silent pictures, usually as Asian or Eurasian vixens. She begged for better roles and even went on strike and suspension. When director WS Van Dyke wanted her for The Thin Man, LB Mayer didn't think audiences would buy her as devoted wife, Nora Charles.

When The Thin Man and subsequent sequels proved to be audience favorites, Loy became typecast as loyal, devoted wife, companion, or friend, which she hated. She never really was allowed to blossom as a leading lady carrying her own pictures like her studio mates Joan Crawford and Norma Shearer.

{quote]KH’s deep love for Spenser was a matter of common knowledge before the 1970s.

Not to the general public.

[quote] The only source for "Spencer Tracy was gay" is Darwin Porter, whose entire career consists of waiting until stars die, then claiming they were gay.

Also Scotty Bowers, who also waited until everyone he said was gay was dead and unable to sue him. He also said he had sex with Spencer Tracy, and that Tracy drunkenly wept in his arms, sobbing about how badly he was being treated by Katherine Hepburn. Bowers said that he procured lesbian sex for Hepburn at least 150 times. Old Scotty had a very vivid imagination.

I would take everything Scotty Bowers said with a grain of salt.

Bowers = Liar.

Nobody cares, David.

Loy was paired about a million times with William Powell, and they were good together, but I saw a film on TCM where Myrna co-starred with Robert Taylor, and they had chemistry out the wazoo. I was very surprised.

[quote] they had chemistry out the wazoo

Is that an anatomical expression? Were they nude?

I wonder why Myrna Loy was offered so few good films.

They're both long dead Rose

Was the original THE THIN MAN really the first time Myrna Loy was cast in a starring role and not as a supporting Eurasian-styled whore?

Myrna Loy had to leave Warner Bros and sign with MGM to get better roles. Her first outing as a romantic leading lady was "The Prizefighter and the Lady" with Max Baer, which was a big flop. She had better luck on her next outings, "Men in White," opposite Clark Gable, and "Manhattan Melodrama" with Gable and William Powell, before landing "The Thin Man."

Loy starred in films as early as 1927 and many of her roles before The Thin Man were not typecast as Eurasian.

Myrna Loy became Monty Clift's lifelong friend after they worked together on "Lonelyhearts" in 1958. In Loy, Clift found another in a long line of mother figures to take care of him. They frequently took vacations together, leading some reporters to insinuate that there was something going on between the two.

[quote] some reporters

They're as gullible as sozzled eledergay dataloungers.

I'd say Spencer Tracy living on George Cukor's property by choice and playing at the Sunday all boys pool parties is pretty bloody gay.

[quote] Spencer Tracy living on George Cukor's property

Pictures, please!

R80, yep. R85, yes, it was known to the general public.

I saw Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner with my parents in 1968, after Tracy’s death but before the ‘70s, and my mother told me about the Tracy-Hepburn relationship before we saw the movie. She was pretty well informed on Hollywood gossip but not an industry insider by any stretch; if she knew about it, then it was common knowledge among people who followed gossip columns and magazines.

R101 As I said there was a leak in an article in the 60s, but before that it was not known, in fact I remember I asked my mom about them because I thought they were married, and she said, no, he's already married, they're just friends. That was probably around the time of their last movie.

Hepburn was furious at Garson Kanin for writing the book, Tracy & Hepburn, which was a best seller after Tracy's death and exposed their relationship (though Kanin was known to be innacurate and to embellish). If it was common knowledge then, I can't see her acting that angry.

I can't remember how or where I heard that Tracy and Hepburn were supposedly lovers by the time Guess Who's Coming to Dinner had opened, but I absolutely agree that it was pretty common knowledge by then, at least for all vintage movie fans. I was just starting college back then. By the time Kanin's book came out (soon after) the news didn't surprise anyone I knew. I have no idea why Hepburn was so upset.

R103, the knowledge probably percolated out to wider and wider groups from almost the beginning. It was too big a secret to have stayed secret for long, no matter how protective the Hollywood press corps may have been.

It's like Rock Hudson being gay. Many people living in caves were shocked when he was diagnosed with AIDS (which must have made learning the truth about Liberace a year or so later especially hard for these naifs), but anyone with an ounce of savvy and an interest in Hollywood gossip had known for years. You just can't keep secrets like that totally secret, even if you can keep them from people who don't pay attention to gossip or don't know how to read between lines or figure out blind items.

[quote] I'd say Spencer Tracy living on George Cukor's property by choice and playing at the Sunday all boys pool parties is pretty bloody gay.

Who said that? Darwin Porter? Scotty Bowers?

Darwin Porter + Scotty Bowers = Liars

[quote] Spencer Tracy living on George Cukor's property

[quote] Pictures, please!

The inside is prettier than the outside. There was a layout in architectural digest when an interior designer bought it.

This thread is full of fraus, good lord. Hepburn was a pussy munching bulldyke. If you don’t believe Scotty Bowers (why is he oh so unreliable? Because he says untoward things about the infallible Hollywood idols?) why not believe Liz Smith, who SAID she was a closeted lesbian.

Stanwyck thought Hepburn was an egotistical BITCH.

R106: Enormous!

[quote] If you don’t believe Scotty Bowers (why is he oh so unreliable? Because he says untoward things about the infallible Hollywood idols?) why not believe Liz Smith, who SAID she was a closeted lesbian.

Scotty Bowers was unreliable because he could not prove one single thing he ever said. You had to take his outlandish tales (threesomes with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor?) on faith.

Liz Smith wasn't exactly a bastion of credibility, either. She was a fucking gossip columnist. Oh by the way, when Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt were making their execrable movie "Pay It Forward" she strongly hinted that were, um, very CLOSE to each other. I guess you believe that, too.

R111, when she commented about Hepburn, Liz Smith was more or less retired and had nothing to lose by telling the truth as she knew it, and knew a LOT of shit. Unlike most other gossip columnists, Smith made friends with celebrities, she wasn't out to get them.