I can’t stand Katherine Hepburn

I can’t stand to watch her for more than 5 minutes. Or 5 seconds really.

Does anyone know what the sibling dynamic was like? Were they close? Did they support one another?

Did they ever work on the same film?

Are you serious? Audrey and KathArine Hepburn were not related

OP R1 R2 Your posts incompetent irrelevant and immaterial

Katherine Hepburn and Audrey Hepburn are not related.

She had a brusque and brassy nature onscreen that is not always the most appealing, but she delivered the goods in a handful of great comedies. I loved her in The Philadelphia Story and Sunmertime—both exceptional movies, largely because of her performances.

I used to find her overrated and felt she played herself in every role but once I started to delve deeper into her filmography, I could see why she supplanted Bette was greatest actress of her generation. Especially towards the end of her career, I felt Kate really branched out with different roles like in The Glass Menagerie and The Trojan Women. In both of those, she was able to hide her Bryn Mawr accent as well. Meanwhile Bette was playing Bunny O'Hare.

I also agree with her take on Meryl Streep that Meryl is a hack who hides behinds accents, technique, and artifice to mask her lack of passion or ability to actually embody a character. I can see why Kate selected Glenn Close as her successor for best actress.

R5 As you pointed out, she was versatile in the way she could do drama and comedy both adeptly. Not to mention period films. Bette lacked the comedic chops. Stanwyck could do drama and comedy but she was only ever believable as the brassy Brooklyn broad and could never do period dramas which is why she was one of the only actresses never in the running for Scarlett O'Hara.

Comedy was not Joan's strong suit either but she was better at it than Bette like in the screwball comedy I Live My Life with Brian Aherne. And Joan could do bitchy comedy very well. It's a pity she never tried in period dramas after The Gorgeous Hussy was a critical failure (even though it was a huge success at the box office for MGM), because I think she could have done quite well especially later on in life. She actually played Queen Elizabeth I on radio before Bette played her onscreen.

They were not sisters. Katherine Hepburn was an amazingly gifted actress. The Lion in Winter, Philadelphia Story, The African Queen, Little Women, Bringing up Baby, are just a few of her great performances. Her acting style was unique.

R6 She had a point on Meryl that a lot of people wouldn't recognize. Kate also never acknowledged other actresses that were her peers. She criticized Meryl and by all accounts only ever liked Melaine Griffith and Julia Roberts as actresses. She famously said about Julia "That girl has it. She's gonna be a star." And she wasn't wrong.

Hepburn was very...twee. Guess which one I'm referring to.

they weren’t related? Wow I always thought they were sisters. Were they in the same era? Did they work together. It’s an odd last name for TWO movie stars to have so I’m sure I’m not the only one who thought that.

I wonder what they thought of each other?

R9 Kate gets the reputation that she wanted to be more actress than star, but that isn't true at all and that really shows in her taste for young talent since she preferred Melanie and Julia. Although Glenn doesn't quite fit in that vein, but then again, Glenn is still known for Fatal Attraction whereas Meryl really has no definitive role in the public.

I think Kate seemed more open to praising new talent. I know she felt Jane Fonda was not a real actress at all, but she absolutely adored Vanessa Redgrave. The two of them got along very well on The Trojan Women and were learning a new language together. She said Vanessa was the only actress who could play her in a biopic.

As for her peers, she never had anything good to say about Bette Davis but Kate was deferential to Joan Crawford, especially as they both shared close friend and director George Cukor. Although Kate and Joan didn't meet socially, they would write to each other later on in life and Joan would praise her latest roles while Kate always said she respected Joan as an actress and contemporary. In turn, Joan would say on talk shows that her favorite actresses were the two Hepburns, as well as Glenda Jackson and Margaret Sullavan. Glenda Jackson was Joan's biggest fan and often said that she grew up with Joan as her idol, followed by Bette.

I would say that Meryl in the Devil wears Prada is definitive.

Were Kate and Audrey competitors?

R13 That role came after Kate's lifetime. Meryl also didn't really become a box office star until the mid-2000s, in part because of Weinstein and The Devil Wears Prada. Her movies before that may have been critically acclaimed but were hardly box office champs.

Kate didn't make a habit of talking about her contemporaries. I've never even read anything she ever said about Elizabeth Taylor.

Kate was good friends with Lauren Bacall. However, Katherine Houghton claimed that Kate hated Ingrid Bergman.

R16 She didn't have to. Joan Crawford spoke for all the Hollywood Old Guard when she would regularly call out Liz for her antics and call her undisciplined, unprofessional, and disrespectful.

Actresses were always shading each other back then. They don’t really do that now. They “rally” and “support” one another, in public anyway.

Loved her in "Desk Set". She also did a fascinating interview with Dick Cavett.

I JaDore Desk Set. R20 I would date you

I loved her and Spencer Tracy in Adams Rib.

R22 one of my favorite comedies.

Kate was also a fan of Sally Field along with John Travolta and Harrison Ford. Could not understand the appeal of Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

She seemed to like "America's Sweetheart' types. But Sally was never a movie star Sweetheart that i know of. Is that right?

I wonder if she liked Meg Ryan or Jennifer Aniston.

KathArine with an A you plebs!

I think she was a brassy broad. I think Julia is a brassy broad But i think Julia's biggest fans think she's an innocent and want her to be that in everything after.

Always thought she was an overconfident, opinionated snob.

I love her. I think she was smart and brilliant.

they weren’t related? Wow I always thought they were sisters. Were they in the same era? Did they work together. It’s an odd last name for TWO movie stars to have so I’m sure I’m not the only one who thought that.

Yes, Rose, did you also know Mario Lopez and Jennifer Lopez are brother and sister?

I like her just for this sign

Was she really a Lez?

How could the OP believe that the two Hepburns were sisters!!?? Doesn't he reference IMDb or Wikipedia before posting (or anyone else posting for that matter)?

What's the reasoning with Kate preferring Julia Roberts to Meryl Streep?

Why *don't* you hear the name "Hepburn"? Was it buried with the sisters?

Even worse...just imagine how hard it was for Hugh Grant to grow up with Cary Grant as his father. They probably had the same kind of tumultuous relationship as Martha Stewart and her dad Jimmy Stewart.

I get a kick out of her interviews from her in the 80’s. Same with Lucy. Two crotchety, angry old women with an uptight East Coast energy who have soured on life, success, and most other things. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a single movie she’s done.

Her comments about Meryl and Glenn are bizarre to me because it seems like they should be switched. Meryl can come across very natural and genuine on film, even in something low key from the period like Falling in Love. Glenn is always Acting with a capital A. There’s a constant desperation there that’s distracting because it feels more like she wants people to be impressed by her performance more than she wants to turn in a performance that’s authentic and true to the movie around it.

It’s that Pick Me! quality to her performances that I think has turned off the Academy all these years.

Interesting life. Her progressive parents were ahead of their time - her mother campaigned with Margaret Sanger for birth control access and her father, a urologist, was a founder of an organization that wanted the public to be educated about venereal disease.

She wore trousers when most women didn't dare - and I know she came out as an atheist, but I don't know how young when she first said it publicly.

I wonder about her inner demons -- when she was 13 she discovered the body of her 15 year old brother, who apparently hanged himself. She couldn't handle school after and her parents hired a private tutor - but managed a degree in history & philosophy while acting in plays at Bryn Mawr.

So while I wonder what she was like as a friend or partner -- I can stand her.

There were suggestions her brother killed himself because he realised he was gay

Interesting article. Was Hepburn trans?

I never knew Barbara Windsor and the Queen were sisters either.

Kate could do everything , comedy, drama, Shakespeare. I love that she always did stage work in her off time to continue to work on her craft.

Coming from money, that obviously helped her but to me she's the real deal. Actress and Movie Star.

Never will be another like her.

I wonder why Cindy Crawford never mentioned her mother Joan's abuse. Grandson Chace has remained tight lipped too.

OP Is Meryl Streep.

Sounds like she was jealous of Streep

Buster Keaton was horrified when his daughter Diane decided to bare it all in 1977 for a tawdry role in Looking for Mr. Goodbar.

Geena Davis doesn't seem to have the same grievance towards her mother Bette like BD does, We know Geena's brother Brad didn't deal with life well. Neither of the siblings inherited their father Mile's musical talent.

It must burn St. Meryl up knowing that the most celebrated actress in Hollywood history adored Glenn over her. Skip to 6:16 if the video doesn't automatically start from there.

It must burn St. Meryl up knowing that the most celebrated actress in Hollywood history adored Glenn over her

I merely glance at my assemblage of awards to console myself.

Katharine Hepburn was also a fan of Sally Field & Julia Roberts.

[quote]She said Vanessa was the only actress who could play her in a biopic.

Little did she know! Cate IS Kate!

ffs r51 read the thread before commenting

Kate said Melanie would burn out. She was right.

That's exactly what I was thinking, R46. And jealousy of successful / beautiful women might explain her fondness for mousy Sally Field. Not sure how it explains Julia though, maybe she also hated blondes.

I can't help but be suspicious she had a lot of narcissism - but then, many/most actors do. There was this comment at the link, by her biographer William Mann:

"Most of all she wanted to be famous, whatever character revisions it took."

Also:

"His Hepburn is a bisexual who didn't much enjoy sex."

Both characteristics of someone who doesn't have a very stable sense of self - the Cluster B personality disorders' core characteristic.

Hmm, G and Hepburn, both handsome, masculine women

Oh I was responding to R46, about her jealousy of Meryl.

Bette Davis was another blunt, bitchy New Englander. Gotta love 'em.

[quote] maybe she also hated blondes.

That's exactly what St. Meryl said about Pauline Kael, who felt the same way as Hepburn about her acting, that Kael was a poor Jewish girl from California who hated blonde WASPS.

🙄

Lol at all the people saying Hepburn was jealous of Streep. Streep will never catch up to Kate's 4 Best Actress Oscars. Especially now that the Academy doesn't bother to give Streep a nomination everytime she sneezes in a different accent.

If anyone can take Kate's mantle, it's Frances McDormand. She's one away from equaling her.

[quote]they weren’t related? Wow I always thought they were sisters. Were they in the same era? Did they work together. It’s an odd last name for TWO movie stars to have so I’m sure I’m not the only one who thought that. I wonder what they thought of each other?

You've got to be kidding, they looked and sounded nothing alike.

Katharine Houghton Hepburn was born on May 12, 1907, in Hartford, Connecticut, the second of six children. Her parents were Thomas Norval Hepburn (1879–1962), a urologist at Hartford Hospital, and Katharine Martha Houghton Hepburn (1878–1951), a feminist campaigner.

Both parents fought for social change in the US: Thomas Hepburn helped establish the New England Social Hygiene Association, which educated the public about venereal disease, while the elder Katharine headed the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association and later campaigned for birth control with Margaret Sanger.

Audrey had a British accent. Audrey was born Audrey Kathleen Ruston (later, Hepburn-Ruston was born on 4 May 1929 in Ixelles, Brussels, Belgium. Audrey was born to an aristocratic family, Hepburn spent parts of her childhood in Belgium, England, and the Netherlands.

Her mother was Baroness Ella van Heemstra (12 June 1900 – 26 August 1984), she was a Dutch noblewoman. Hepburn's father, Joseph Victor Anthony Ruston (21 November 1889 – 16 October 1980), was a British subject born in Auschitz, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary

What's so odd about two actresses having the same last name? Stop trolling.

R59 Kael loved Jessica Lange though who was equally as blonde and even more beautiful. Meryl, at her best, was pretty in a plain way but never a a beauty. Lange was a stunner. All these posts about how Meryl is underappreciated or how everyone is out to get her because of her talent and beauty are laughable.

Glenn's character in his first movie role, The World According to Garp, seems modeled after Kate to an extent. The Bryn Mawr accent and the single, feminist status.

R49 That's the reason Glenn always glows over Kate whereas Meryl never has anything to say about her. You just know that if Kate had championed Meryl as her successor, Meryl would always be going around about how Kate was the greatest actress of her time and not Bette, and how she was personally hand-selected by her.

It's no secret brothers Roger and Kenneth Moore loathed one another, and it seems the sibling rivalry was inherited by their children Julianne and Demi however granddaughter Mandy seems to have buried the hatchet. Every family has their problems.

Hepburn liked Angela Lansbury and hand-picked her for State of the Union.

Hepburn was a very smart woman. Unlike Joan, Norma and Bette, she recognized she was a career-oriented person, and never had children. She never tried to cage herself in gender expectations.

She was the leziest lez whoever lezed

Audrey's song.

[quote] Kael loved Jessica Lange though who was equally as blonde and even more beautiful. Meryl, at her best, was pretty in a plain way but never a a beauty. Lange was a stunner. All these posts about how Meryl is underappreciated or how everyone is out to get her because of her talent and beauty are laughable.

Kael also loved the very blonde and beautiful Michelle Pfeiffer. So this idea that she hated Meryl because she's this blonde screen goddess is silly. But that doesn't stop the Streep fanboys from running with it.

She admitted she was bi, but hardly a lez.

[quote] Kael also loved the very blonde and beautiful Michelle Pfeiffer. So this idea that she hated Meryl because she's this blonde screen goddess is silly. But that doesn't stop the Streep fanboys from running with it.

Kael also hated Clint Eastwood. Which is why although Jessica Lange was originally attached to The Bridges of Madison County, when Eastwood came onboard he got rid of Lange because he associated her as Kael's favorite and got Meryl instead.

Speaking of Pfeiffer and Lange both being blonde and loved by Kael, they were wonderful as sisters in A Thousand Acres, an updated version of King Lear, also starring Jason Robards as the father and Jennifer Jason Leigh as the third sister. Colin Firth is romantically attached to both Lange and Pfeiffer's characters and Michelle Williams has one of her early roles as Pfeiffer's daughter.

Kate WAS a lez and I'm just the dame who can prove it!

You homosexuals can’t possibly even begin to imagine what it is like coming from a family were all of the sisters are famous in their own right. I’ve always loved you little fruits, but you have no idea.

Tammy Faye Bakker- sister to Anita Bakker, Josephine Bakker, and Carroll Bakker

if anything Meryl seems jealous of Cate Blanchett. I've never heard her go out of her way to praise Cate. It probably irks her that Cate can do accents as well but can actually act with them without coming across as a big ham. And Cate has the beauty and glamour that Meryl never had.

I think Meryl and Glenn would have to co-star in the same movie in order for this to be settled once and for all.

Maybe they could do the dueling makeup heirs as a movie or some other property with two female leads.

r76 a remake of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane.

Audrey's my sister AND my daughter!

How does a thread about the two Hepburn actresses end up about Meryl, Glenn, Cate Blanchett etc?!

Does any DL thread remain on topic?

[quote] I think Meryl and Glenn would have to co-star in the same movie in order for this to be settled once and for all.

They already co-starred in two movies. The House of Spirits was a notorious flop and Meryl's performance was panned even by her supporters. Glenn was actually considered the best part of that movie. So in terms of their first team-up, Glenn easily wins.

They also starred in Evening but they don't share any scenes together. Glenn plays the mother of Meryl Streep's character (the young Meryl was played by Meryl's real life daughter). The movie belongs more to Vanessa Redgrave and the younger cast. Meryl only has one scene at the end and Glenn's role isn't huge either. They both do reasonably well though with Meryl and Vanessa sharing a heart to heart and Glenn having a breakdown at her son's death.

[quote]Does any DL thread remain on topic?

Sometimes. No one has mentioned "Follies" in this thread, so far.

Evening is an interesting movie since it features Hepburn's least favorite actress and her two favorite actresses.

R80 very interesting.

I would still like to see them face off in a film with two strong female leads. Would be kind of cool.

I love both Hepburn "sisters," but really only love Sister Kate as an actress. Yes, she was weirdly mannered and seemed pretentious. She was Katharine Hepburn. Bette Davis also lacked humility.

Hepburn was a movie STAH who played in lead roles that seemed to have been written only for her, regal, proud, sporty women in slacks who stood above everyone else in the room and was a straight talker but also a decent person of strong moral character. I think Davis could have played some of those roles, perhaps, but Hepburn's physical stature and hard beauty contributed something no one else could. And she played the same types of stolid, self-assured characters from the 30s through the 80s.

I guess I can understand objectively why some people would reject her as an actress but to me she is one of the few 'iconic' figures who was the model for a mold that hasn't been used as well to make any great duplicates. I do feel like Cate Blanchett is kind of a Kate 2.0, but she's got much softer edges and doesn't have as self-important an air, which I would prefer in a person whose company I'm in, but insofar as a movie STAH, Kate's quiet arrogance, like Bette Davis's, really created her into a legend whose life was on the big screen and couldn't be shrunken down to a small hotel-room press junket to hawk a Marvel-esque product if you tried.

[quote]R4 Katherine Hepburn and Audrey Hepburn are not related.

They are. Look at their names.

She definitely gives off lezzie vibes. You can’t picture her with a man so much as one of the boys.

Some new version of The Women or Stage Door—not those stories, just the concept of casts of incredible women actors together—would be amazing if some auteur spent time coming up with a good story and great dialogue and the execs involved didn't insist on fucking it up.

Imagine an ensemble cast with Cate Blanchett, Nicole Kidman, Glenn Close, Meryl Streep, Kate Winslet, Julianne Moore and Renée Zellweger all as frenemies with competing interests but ultimately supporting one another with nonstop barbed dialogue, maybe as women politicians or business leaders, or conversely as all working-class school teachers or Amazon fulfillment center workers who are stuck in some rural town and whose great potential is being wasted away while they all have ambitions to get the hell out even into their 50s and later. It would be amazing.

well said r84, and I agree with you on everything except your thinking Blanchett is not as self -important. Blanchett is arrogant and pretentious. Katharine Hepburn crossed me as someone who knew who she was; confident, strong, independent, strong-willed, she wasn't going to let anyone put her in a box and tell her who she was.

It turns out both Hepburns played a version of CoCo Chanel.

sounds painful r87

R87 you are on to something.

I would watch that.

Hepburn knew who she was and didn't pretend to be anything but. Blanchett pretends to be much more than she is.

Did Blanchet play Kate in a movie or did I imagine that?

WHAT ABOUT ME R87 YOU NASTY LITTLE HOMOMOSEXUAL BOY!

R93 The Aviator. I think it was her first Oscar.

Ahhh yes.

How does a thread about the two Hepburn actresses end up about Meryl, Glenn, Cate Blanchett etc?!

Does any DL thread remain on topic?

What about ME! NO ONE HAS MENTIONED ME!

R87 Careful what you wish for. A remake of The Women already exists. Probably the only actress in it comparable to the ones you listed would be Annette Bening.

R98 I know it. That's why I said not a remake of one of those movies. That concept wouldn't work at all today, and remaking something perfect and of its time isn't something I support. I only mean to suggest the concept of great ensembles with our greatest actresses being the sole protagonists of a movie together could be brilliant. Like, they're all WAY too old to play in Stage Door, whose whole concept is dated beyond being repeatable today, anyway—but the idea of today's versions of Kate Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, Lucille Ball, Eve Arden, Ann Miller et al playing against one another with an emphasis on their competing personalities could be a great time capsule.

R99 The issue with your idea is that all the actresses you listed in R87 are A-List leading ladies who command their own fees. It's hard to get an ensemble cast with all those stars made, whether male or female. The Ocean's 11 franchise is the only one I can think of but even the female Ocean's 8 really only had Cate and Sandra as big stars, maybe Anne Hathaway and Helena Bonham Carter as well. The rest were TV actresses (Sarah Paulson, Mindy Kaling) or musical performers (Rihanna, Awkwafina).

With Stage Door, only Hepburn and Rogers were A-Listers and even Hepburn was at her box office poison era. Lucille Ball, Eve Arden, and Ann Miller were all in the infancy of their careers and Ann Miller in particular wasn't even 18 then.

R100 Only Cate stands out among that cast as the caliber of actress I'm thinking of. :) I like Anne Hathaway but she's not the type to command zingers in the way I'm thinking of, and Sandra...I don't know, she's one of those actors whose laurels I don't understand. Like Leo DiCaprio, something about the way she speaks makes me feel like she's just reading her lines.

Helena Bonham Carter is great but she also doesn't feel like a headliner to me, more of an interesting human set decoration to draw out of the recesses now and then for a little eccentric flavor.

Rihanna and Awkwafina?! 🤐

R2 She discussed their relationship in this

R101 But that's exactly the reason that movie was made because the cast was so varied. Cate had no real competition there with any of the actresses. Probably the only one close to her range would be Helena Bonham Carter, but like you said, she sticks to zany or eccentric roles. There would be less egos to deal with if every actress has her own specific caliber of talents and particular range unlike if you pit Cate against Julianne, Nicole, Naomi, Kate, Glenn, etc. Similarly, that's the reason you don't see Sandra in a movie headlining all of America's sweethearts like Julia Roberts, Meg Ryan, Jennifer Aniston, and Reese Witherspoon. And even when Jennifer and Reese work together, they're put in very different roles so they don't step on each other's toes.

Most actors won't want to work with rivals who can steal the show from them. I made a thread earlier about how Julianne and Cate have had 3 movies together but they've never shared a scene together. Judi Dench was also in The Shipping News with them but I don't recall her ever interacting with either, although in Notes on a Scandal the whole movie's premise is about Judi and Cate's relationship. You can find lots of movies that feature a duo or trio of the actresses you listed but I can't imagine something that would be headlined by eight stars, all who are used to being leading ladies on their own and playing specific dramatic roles. With a huge ensemble cast, some roles are going to get more attention than others and not everyone can play the dramatic roles. Paradise Road featured Glenn Close as the lead of an ensemble cast but it's Cate in one of her early roles and Frances McDormand as a German defector who steal the show.

Also ironically enough, in Ocean's 8, it was Anne Hathaway who got the best reviews out of the entire cast, precisely because she was given all the lines that were zingers.

What are Meryl and Glenn up to these days anyway? Are they still getting prime roles?

OK, R103. I don't have any power or influence to make it happen, and so I am not going to take the idea so seriously. 😬 But thanks for putting so much thought into analyzing it into oblivion!

R105 Another example is in Mrs. America, Cate Blanchett is the only big star. Rose Byrne, Sarah Paulson, and Margo Martindale are her co-stars but none of them have her A-List movie star status. Sarah has that status but only in the world of TV. In movies, she's relegated to playing the supporting role, like the sister of Sandra Bullock, or the friend of Renee Zellweger or Cate Blanchett.

This is also why even with deceased actresses, that we never saw a movie with say Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Katharine Hepburn, Vivien Leigh, Olivia de Havilland, and Joan Fontaine all together. It took years for Bette and Joan to come together for a movie and they couldn't even make it for their second one. Olivia and Joan Fontaine never acted together onscreen. Bette was desperate to play alongside Katharine but Katharine was not interested at all. Olivia did work with Bette numerous times but that's because she was willing to play the secondary role and never threatened to upstage Bette. Joan Fontaine also has supporting roles in some Joan Crawford movies but as soon as Joan Fontaine became a leading lady in her own right, that stopped. Same with Rosalind Russell who, before she became a star, would have supporting roles in Joan Crawford's movies but when she became established from The Women, you wouldn't see her supporting one of her contemporaries anymore.

However, just in case it seems like I'm nitpicking for the sake of nitpicking, I should say I do like your idea a lot and would hope we could get some project with all of them together even if that would probably never be feasible. I think it was you who posted in another thread about that same group of actresses where I responded that they were all great talents and I was glad to see Renee's name included because DL tends to be a bit hard on her. There are several other actresses I can think of who would work well with the group you listed and thankfully there are movies that exist with certain combos of those actresses even if they're usually just 2 or 3 at most.

R104 Meryl seems to not be as omnipresent in the movies anymore as she used to be, thank goodness for that. It seems like she stopped trying once she stopped getting nominations every year. She's joining the cast for the TV show Only Murders in the Building.

Glenn is still working on Andrew Lloyd Weber's Sunset Boulevard musical being made into a film.

R105 Also what other actresses would you include in your initial list?

Meryl on tv is rare. Is Sandra Bullock the last holdout that won’t do streaming TV series?

The rest have caved including Julia?

R106 I also included (and in my mind I still do) Claire Danes among my original list, but I decided to leave her out here so as not to derail the discussion with people denigrating her talent. I still think she has the gravitas and acting depth and range to play against all the heavy hitters today. And I would also include Toni Collette, now that I've been reminded of her via a current hate-thread dedicated to her. In a version of Stage Door, Toni would be the best of the group in the Kay role.

You have to have Frances m. for good measure.

R110 I remember you included Claire Danes in your list. It's funny you mention Toni Collette because she was also in Evening since that was discussed above in terms of Meryl and Glenn. Evening is probably the movie that came closest to your idea of a bunch of great actresses all working together in one film since Vanessa Redgrave and Natasha Richardson were also in that.

Sometimes siblings in the same line of work can be vastly different. So I'm not surprised Katherine and Audrey the Hepburn sisters had such differing appeals.

It can be vastly different too, as in the case of Marilyn Monroe and her brother whose full name escapes me, you know, the one who was in the sitcom Too Close for Comfort.

Kate and Audrey were more than sisters, they were twins separated at birth.

Tee hee

1%er. sorry, but she'll have to go before the people's tribunal.

Iheard that Jamie Lee Curtis and Ponyboy Curtis from The Outsiders were sister and brother. True or false?

How did Shirley Jones get along with her sisters Carolyn Jones and Jennifer Jones? Was there a lot of competition among these siblings?

Judy Garland and Beverly Garland.

Miss H. at the Oscars.

I though Carol Wayne was a lot nicer than her dad, the Duke of Wayne Manor.

Hate her also.

Academy Awards, 1974, Thalberg Award.

Wad she a lezzie?

She was lesbian and shook like a weed in the wind

I concur.

Nobody can tell me that Audrey Hepburn wasn't Katharine Hepburn's kid sister—and, by the way, the superior actress. I'm sorry that they were so cold to each other in their professional lives—I don't think they had much of a personal connection after their parents passed—but when Kate saw Audrey performing a range of roles from dewy ingenues to ukulele-strumming working girls, and with a subtlety and emotional range that Kate could only dream of, well, the green-eyed monster must have been running amuck.

Right before she died I saw her on tv and could only watch 30 seconds of the interview. She was shaking so damned much it was throwing me off balance. I was sitting at the time.

I always liked her and she always spoke very highly of you, OP. I'm shocked to see you turn on her like this.

Anyone who believes Streep is a hack hiding behind accents is a dunce. Hepburn’s remark about Streep was pure jealousy. Hepburn was a great actress and star. But she was far from a perfect person/ interesting but she constructed more or less a complete persona for the public to cover her real truth. She fancied herself fearless when the truth is that she wasn’t at all. She manufactured a complete falsehood about her life, doubling down on it at the end of her life. If she really was the brave iconoclast she wanted to be perceived as- she should have told the truth.

Kind of astounds me that anyone would think Kate and Audrey were sisters- is that how little sone know of yesterdays film greats?

What did Kate Hepburn have against Bette Davis? Did she feel Davis was an inferior talent? Too much ego for one room? I do recall reading a book about Davis where someone was quotes as saying "Only a mother could love Bette Davis at the height of her career." I can imagine that Hepburn and Davis could never work together - I think it would be worse than Bette and Joan as Kate would be a more formidable match on the set.

R130 don’t be stupid….. JEALOUSY

Two headstrong New England Yankees in the same film together? Talk about the clash of the titans had Hepburn and Davis worked together.

I saw Bette Davis on The Tonight Show years back and I don't remember if the host was Carson or Leto but he asked her who her favorite current actress was and she said Debra Winger. The host told her they say she's difficult and she responded that they thought she was difficult as well. I've always been neutral about Winger but I did think she was spectacular in Terms of Endearment and should have won the oscar.

[quote]R92 Hepburn knew who she was and didn't pretend to be anything but.

Well, she pretended to be str8.

OP, I, too, burn with indignation that Jean Stapleton never let her sister, Maureen, guest star on "All in the Family." And don't get me started on Thomas Jefferson's descendants denying George and Louise's rightful place on the family tree!

Winger was a nutjob which explains why Bette was a fan. Bette was so hated by WB and her crew during her heydays that Bette herself admitted only a mother could have loved her for her antics. One of the crew even tried to blind Bette by putting poison in the eyedrops she would use after every take. When she demanded the studio take action to find the culprit, the crew rallied together and even WB knew that anyone could have done it because they all hated her. Another time, someone dropped on anvil that almost hit her and the joke was that it was Joan Crawford who did it, which did not make Ms. Davis laugh.

Hepburn and Crawford were always consummate professionals.

I love Kate.

She’s dead

I watched Katharine Hepburn in "The Philadelphia Story" last night on TCM. She's a joy to watch in that movie. Of course, the role was written for her.

Got stoned and watched On Golden Pond. Her voice and shakes were intolerable. So were the many shots of Jane Fonda’s super hot bod glistening in the sun, on the dock while her real dad was in the film - and he gives the fakest heart attack performance I’ve ever seen. After his brush with death he becomes a nice man.

Dabney Coleman was hot.

Did Jane and Katharine clash on this set?

[quote]How did Shirley Jones get along with her sisters Carolyn Jones and Jennifer Jones? Was there a lot of competition among these siblings?

All three of them were envious of the physical attributes of the fourth sister, Stupefyin' Jones.

What do you expect? She became an old dried up bull dyke with obvious health issues. She probably hated the world.

[quote] Did Jane and Katharine clash on this set? Didn't Jane admit that Katharine thought she wasn't a real actress? There's also a story there about how when Katharine won her 4th Oscar for On Golden Pond, she sent a telegram to Jane gloating about how she'll never catch up to her now. During this time, Jane had 2 Oscars and was considered the best actress of her generation so it was widely believed she would win a 3rd Oscar and match Katharine although clearly that wasn't the case.

[quote] Did Jane and Katharine clash on this set?

Didn't Jane admit that Katharine thought she wasn't a real actress? There's also a story there about how when Katharine won her 4th Oscar for On Golden Pond, she sent a telegram to Jane gloating about how she'll never catch up to her now. During this time, Jane had 2 Oscars and was considered the best actress of her generation so it was widely believed she would win a 3rd Oscar and match Katharine although clearly that wasn't the case.

Shit. What a bitch.

At least Katharine Hepburn didn't produce a son/daughter named Ruby/Thomas.

My Calla Lilies will be in bloom again in a couple months.

"Glenn is still known for Fatal Attraction whereas Meryl really has no definitive role in the public."

The definitive Meryl Streep role is Miranda Priestly.

R140 It was angina, or false angina, not a heart attack.

Despite winning the most Best Actress oscars, I wonder how many she actually won by large margins. She tied with Streisand for one of them. Her win for On Golden Pond was a huge surprise. But there had been no clear favorite that year, so I wonder if she had gotten in by a handful of votes.

What about Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? She always said she won it for Spencer Tracy's performance.

But he was so oddly relaxed in his gentle collapse. I saw my dad have a minor attack and he was breathless and clutching himself.

The trolls here are exhausting, they aren't even funny.

R151 Because it wasn't a heart attack (in the movie). Just chest pain. You don't get up from a heart attack and go for a walk.

Helena Bonham Carter is my current favorite actress. Some experienced veteran OP needs to start thread on Helena Bonham Carter. She has a VERY interesting life.

R150 - Hepburn won of her first Oscar in 1934 for Morning Glory and won her second Oscar in 1968 for The Lion in Winter.

Between wins in 1934 and 1968, she was further nominated 8 times.

R154 Why can't you do it?

She played the same character in every film she was in.

[quote] Helena Bonham Carter is my current favorite actress.

*snorts*

"She was so competitive."

[quote] Another time, someone dropped on anvil that almost hit her

0/10

Enough Hanoi Jane.

[quote] I think it would be worse than Bette and Joan as Kate would be a more formidable match on the set.

Bette’s rival was Miriam Hopkins, not Joan Crawford. Crawford meant nothing to her. Joan was just common trash in her eyes and no one really took Joan seriously as an actress. She would have been long forgotten had it not been for Mommie Dearest. Christina actually helped her stay relevant. Joan’s films did not age well. She didn’t have range and pretty much was over before the hag films. Then it was all Pepsi-Cola shit. Bette never stopped working and had balls when it came to the rolls that she played. Joan played about 2 types of characters. Nothing more.

Didn't Katharine Hepburn, in the late 60s/early 70s, criticize the lazy and insolent youth of the era taking up misguided causes? People thought she meant Vanessa Redgrave but they got along swimmingly so it's more likely that Hepburn meant the other poster child actress for activism at the time, Jane Fonda.

[quote] Despite winning the most Best Actress oscars, I wonder how many she actually won by large margins. She tied with Streisand for one of them. Her win for On Golden Pond was a huge surprise. But there had been no clear favorite that year, so I wonder if she had gotten in by a handful of votes.

It's been argued that she won Oscars for all the wrong movies. Little Women, The Philadelphia Story, Long Day's Journey Into Night, and The Lion Winter were her best roles. The Lion in Winter is the only one she won an Oscar for.

154 Carter doesn't get a lot of due as an actress but she was superb in The Wings of the Dove and 55 Steps. She deserved an Oscar nomination for the latter.

I never thought Kate and Audrey were sisters, but cousins. What an unusual last name. You never hear it now. As for Kate vs. Bette, well Kate came from class, and Bette was crass. Bette always complemented Kate's face, and Kate said of Bette, there wasn't a camera lens able to make Bette look 25 again, circa 1960. Bette absolutely seemed a more down to barebacks actress, I could never see Kate playing Baby Jane Hudson, let alone Bunny O'Hare. Kate would have been a delight in Wicked Stepmother, Bette's last role in which the cancer killing Bette was all too obvious.

R162 Bette acted like she hated Crawford but that wasn't the case. In private she admitted to Ryan Murphy that she actually admired Joan and considered her a consummate professional but she still went on all the talk shows and would trash talk Joan because it's what the public expected of her and she wouldn't deny her fans. Joan, true to her status as a professional, never badmouthed Bette on TV. She wouldn't even bring her up unless someone brought her up first. Bette admitted that she regretted how she treated Joan and wished things could have been different hence the premise of the finale episode of Feud.

Also Bette is only remembered these days because of the feud with Joan Crawford. I never hear one's name without the other so Bette should be thankful because Joan's fame or infamy is what has kept Bette relevant. Joan has a multitude of classic films like Grand Hotel, The Women, Johnny Guitar, Mildred Pierce, Sudden Fear, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and her Rain has been re-evaluated by critics as a masterpiece. Critics in general have realized that Joan didn't get her due as an actress in her time period but that she was actually an expert in the craft and a titan of the industry. Joan knew when to be subtle and underplay, two words Bette never knew the meaning of. All About Eve was really her last good role. She tried to repeat Baby Jane or Margo Channing in every film after What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? but audiences and critics were not interested in seeing her ham it up even more. She has no classics or Oscar nominations after Baby Jane for a reason. You're right that Bette never stopped working, she never stopped working on drivel like Bunny O'Hare and Wicked Stepmother. I should point out that even in Wicked Stepmother, Bette's last film, she couldn't get away from Joan because they threw in a picture of Joan to cast her as the rival of Bette's character.

[quote] Bette always complemented Kate's face, and Kate said of Bette, there wasn't a camera lens able to make Bette look 25 again, circa 1960.

That reminds me of when Vivien Leigh said this, "I could almost stand to look at Joan Crawford's face at 6am, but not Bette Davis."

That also reminds me that even in Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte, Bette wanted to play the younger version of her character in her 20s. She was flat out denied that but she still voiced her and it's so hilariously jarring to hearing Bette's crone of a voice croak through the body of a nubile 20-year old actress.

I wonder if things would have fared better for Bette had she won the oscar for Baby Jane. Hepburn never had a slump, but her back to back oscar wins along with starring on Broadway at the same time really brought about a renewed public interest in her.

If I recall correctly, Bette got oscar nominationn buzz for Death on the Nile and Whales of August.

[quote]Was she really a Lez?

Yes

R157 Not really. Eva Lovelace in Morning Glory is nothing like Terry Randall in Stage Door, even though they're both aspiring young actresses. One is gentle and vulnerable, the other is brash and self-absorbed. Jo in Little Women is nothing like Mrs. Venable in Suddenly, Last Summer. Amanda Bonner, the lawyer in Adam's Rib, isn't anything like Clara Schumann in Song Of Love, or Jade in Dragon Seed.

Kate didn't have the drains on her money that Bette did. Plus Kate held up better through the years and she had worked to manufacture a mystique about her which helped her still be box office.

If Davis couldn't stand Miss Dunaway's on set antics, I'm not sure she's find peak Debra Winger to her taste either...

R169 Bette never had a chance to win for Baby Jane. Anne Bancroft and Geraldine Page were winning all the precursors and critics awards. Bette didn't win anything. Another thing to keep in mind is that Bette had alienated most everyone in Hollywood which is why she never won another Oscar after Jezebel back in 1938. Her two Oscars are only because she won them both early in her career before she made herself such a nuisance.

I've never heard about Bette getting Oscar buzz for Death on the Nile. Angela Lansbury did though and she did get a BAFTA nomination as did Maggie Smith. The only Oscar buzz for Bette was the buzzing in her head and why she chose the role because she thought she could replicate what Ingrid Bergman did with Murder on the Orient Express and conjure herself up a 3rd Oscar. For The Whales of August, it was Lillian Gish who got all the rave reviews. Bette was criticized for being one-note and just playing herself, a grumbling old lady. That more or less replicated their dynamic on set because Bette bullied Lillian who was not a fan of her at all. Lillian realized the best way to deal with Bette was to literally tune her out by turning off her hearing aids and she made pointed comments herself about how hideous Bette looked.

[quote]Also Bette is only remembered these days because of the feud with Joan Crawford.

That is absolutely not true. Stupidest comment in this thread so far.

Joan is most certainly not forgotten. Glenda Jackson, Cate Blanchett, Rachel Weisz, and Michelle Pfeiffer have all said they grew up watching her movies and she taught them that there could be strong women onscreen in a time when there was a dearth of good roles for women when these actresses were growing up. Cate in particular used Joan as inspiration for the stepmother in Cinderella. Rachel used Joan as inspiration for the Wicked Witch she played in Oz the Great and Powerful. Madonna used Joan in Humoresque as inspiration for one of her music videos as well as Joan's look in Rain as Miss Sadie Thompson for her own look in Desperately Seeking Susan.

Bette could tussle upon occasion with a director or the money men, but she was always professional on set. Bette's the one who came out in her wig cap and sang I've Written a Letter to Daddy to entertain the extras while Faye was in her trailer holding everything up.

R169 Bette was the first woman to receive the AFI Life Achievement Award, in 1977. She was the fifth recipient of the award (previous recipients were John Ford, James Cagney, Orson Welles, and William Wyler). The next actress to win it was Lillian Gish in 1984. She won an Emmy for Strangers: The Story of a Mother and Daughter (1979) with Gena Rowlands, and was nominated for her performances in White Mama (1980) and Little Gloria... Happy at Last (1982). That's not bad late-career recognition. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1983 and had a hard recovery. She did continue to work but at greatly diminished capacity.

List of Bette's awards and nominations.

R135, are you Margery Taylor Green?

R177 Bette herself has disputed that. She said she was a terror on-set when she was doing Mr. Skeffington. This is the same woman who had public feuds and disputes with Miriam Hopkins, Joan Crawford, Celeste Holm, Susan Hayward, Lillian Gish, Angela Lansbury, Rita Hayworth, Faye Dunaway, Lucile Watson, Errol Flynn, Glenn Ford, Jack Warner, Robert Montgomery, William Wyler, Vincent Sherman, Olivia Hussey, and all her surviving ex-husbands (not including the one she killed). Joan remained on amiable terms with all her ex-husbands.

Also contrast the departures of Joan and Bette from their home studios. When Joan left MGM, she got a big party and when she returned years later for Torch Song, she got a huge welcome back. When Bette left WB, she admitted that there was nobody there to say goodbye and no fanfare whatsoever. She just silently left the studio like any other day and drove off.

Just a reminder that both Judy Garland and Joan Crawford received Cecil B. DeMille awards before Bette Davis.

Thanks to R146, Jamie Lee Curtis has entered the thread

Get a clue, folks! There are too many responses for me to override my impatience at repeatedly reading where people here are amazed that they were not sisters and are also wondering about their identical last names. So, I've skipped ahead and past the last 100 responses so as to post the info that follows and gives clarity.

The link here tells about Audrey Hepburn who WAS NOT born with that last name and was about a half generation behind Kate in terms of their overlapping time frames. In fact, Audrey was born in 1929 in Belgium and suffered the effects of poor nutrition under the Nazi rule.

And for what it's worth, I still adore both Katherine Hepburn and Audrey Hepburn!

[quote]R140 Did Jane and Katharine clash on this set?

Well, Kate very much wanted to not be seen as subservient to the younger actress, who was also the producer. For instance, when they met Kate saw they were the same height (5’8”) and surprised, immediately put on high platform shoes. Then Fonda showed Kate the house she’d rented for Hepburn near the location. She said she liked Jane’s better and took that one.

She was supportive of Jane while working in a few instances but also told her upon meeting, “I don’t like you.” Fonda’s never shared what Hepburn’s reason was, but said it was understandable.

Katharine Hepburn didn't like the young activists of the time. She probably disliked Jane for that.

I stand with Emma Thompson. Twee has no place in cinema.

Joan Crawford was a shitty actress, while Bette Davis was one of the two or three most brilliant screen actresses of the 20th century.

R188, who were the other brilliant, 20th century, screen actresses?

R189 Well, to me, Davis was THE best, but I was just trying to be fair to a few others. Garbo, Stanwyck, K. Hepburn and/or Vivien Leigh, I would say.

Bette was the Actress, Joe was the Movie Star. She did Movie Star acting on screen and was careful to look like a Movie Star when off. They really drove in two different lanes.

^Joan

Bulldagger Joan was a Joe at heart

Why are these boring people like R162 and R167 on a gay board? Gay men would love Joan Crawford for Mildred Pierce and The Women, etc., even if not for Mommy Dearest. We love Bette Davis for movies like Baby Jane and Burnt Offerings as much as for Jezebel and All About Eve, and don't give a shit that the Academy disapproved of her. Subtle, understated acting isn't the only thing in the world.

Has anyone mentioned Kristen Stewart and her aunt, Martha Stewart?

Bette acted like she hated Crawford but that wasn't the case. In private she admitted to Ryan Murphy that she actually admired Joan and considered her a consummate professional but she still went on all the talk shows and would trash talk Joan because it's what the public expected of her and she wouldn't deny her fans.

R167 I don't recall Bette trash talking Joan on any talk shows. I could be wrong. Can you link to any examples?

I always wonder if Mandy and Demi Moore are close.

[quote] I don't recall Bette trash talking Joan on any talk shows. I could be wrong. Can you link to any examples?

Skip to 3:48. Here’s one of the many instances where she talks about how Joan sabotaged her chances of winning an Oscar for Whatever Happened to Baby Jane.

R198 Well, that's just the truth.

Bette brought the receipts.

The two were not really sisters, though a lot of books state that. Kate in fact had Audrey when she was around 20, kicking around New York and sleeping with any producer (male or female) that might give her a job. Some say Jed Harris was the father, others Billy Rose. It was even whispered Luddy Smith was the father, though he later denied this when the “sisters” were surprised on This is Your Life!

At any rate, bastard baby Audrey was shipped off to Europe to be raised by distant relatives in the Hepburn-Ruston line. This branch had fallen on hard times and needed the monthly check.

You all know the rest.

Jed Harris was the father of Ruth Gordon's son, r201.

R129 if Hepburn was so jealous of Meryl why would she be so gracious and complementary of Streep's contemporary "movie star" counterpart Julia Roberts even reaching out and offering encouragement?

R166, Hepburn is not that unusual last name, there's a child actor Philip Hepburn named as such:

Phil was Kate and Audrey's beloved little brother.

With or without Crawford's infamy from Mommie D, Bette has always been a huge star, and just as relevant as Hepbun. BD was always accessible to the press, especially in her old age. 60 Minutes ran a great Mike Wallace interview with her in 1980, and Kim Carnes helped, too. The scandal with her daughter's book did not damage her rep, it brought sympathy.

I pretty much like the AFI greatest actress list, Kate #1 and Bette #2. Would have probably moved Marilyn down and Joan up. And Barbara higher as well.

I did an IMDb search on “Hepburn” and near the bottom of the hits [italic]Elsa Martinelli’s[/italic] name came up!

I had never heard she was Audrey’s sister (or daughter?) before, but there is definitely a resemblance!

This is so weird!

The feeling is mutual dear.

Kate was a snob. She hated poor Joan with a passion. She hated Ginger - I can understand that, most people did. She and Bette didn't have much time for each but did at least respected each other's acting talents.

Kate had affairs with Marlene & Garbo but the love of life was American Express heiress Laura Harding.

R204 I never knew Kate had a child. She hid that secret well.

[quote]R210 Kate was a snob. She hated poor Joan with a passion. She hated Ginger

Did she hate Joan? I never read KH comment on her, or of any tussle. (Though come to think of it, Crawford was an old ex of Spencer Tracy’s.)

I believe KH felt a rivalry with Rogers but are there nasty stories beyond her tipping water out a high window onto Roger’s passing fur coat and singing, “If it’s mink, it won’t shrink”?

[quote]R211 I never knew Kate had a child. She hid that secret well.

Philip Hepburn was a nepo baby.

[quote] She hated Ginger - I can understand that, most people did.

Ginger definitely held her own against Kate in Stage Door. Ginger doesn't get enough credit for being a formidable actress back in her day.

Joan was a movie star, Bette was an actress (the better) two totally different things. I don't think Jane Fonda is that great an actress, she seems to always be playing herself and has never gotten over her insecurities around her appearance and being Henry Fonda's daughter. Hepburn could act, but she wasn't that versatile, she disliked Davis because she was better born, it was a class thing. Overall, I think Davis was the better actor, she was more versatile and more talented, and she didn't have Hepburn or Crawford's beauty to fall back on, she had to work harder at it.

Does anyone know who designed Hepburn's wardrobe for Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? I could never find out who it was.

Subjective rankings are so stupid to me, claiming X person was superior to Y person. It makes no sense in any artistic endeavor, and it doesn't make sense with Katharine and Bette. Neither one in my view deserves to be placed above the other. They were wildly different—both odd looking but both strangely beautiful, both brilliant actors whose acting was affected and not naturalistic, but who evolved over time, both delicate ingenues who played their roles confidently and grew into imposing grande dames. Even the way both of them spoke is peculiar and 'iconic,' with Bette's peculiar rat-a-tat cadence and Katharine's tremors.

If you claim Kate's Lion in Winter role was the best of all of them, you choose to ignore All About Eve. If you claim Bette's All About Eve role was brave and wild, then you choose to ignore Suddenly, Last Summer.

They were evenly matched. Co-equals.

Joan was more style than substance. I would say she and Katharine were pretty evenly matched stylewise, both total originals who no one else could emulate.

[quote] Kate was a snob. She hated poor Joan with a passion.

So much of the posts on this thread are spreading disinformation. Kate did not hate Joan. They did not meet socially but they got along well and would write to each other because they both shared George Cukor and Spencer Tracy as friends. Joan was romantically involved with Spencer and they had a falling out, which is why they only did one movie together (Mannequin) and Joan had him fired from Strange Cargo and replaced with Clark Gable (her 8th and final film with the King). However, this was before Kate came into Spencer's life. Also Joan and Spence must have patched things up because later on in life Joan would always say that Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy were the two greatest actors she had ever known. When Joan reached out to Kate after Spencer's death, Kate would mention that Spencer always held Joan in high regard and so much of her own esteem for Joan came from what George and Spencer would say about her. The letters are all online for anyone to see. They kept up correspondence up until Joan's death and Kate even said she didn't believe anything Christina Crawford had to say about Joan and that Christina was a spoiled brat.

So NO, Kate did not hate Joan and vice-versa. Both of them believed in being stars first and that glamour was a necessary part of the mystique of being a star. Kate disliked Bette and Ingrid Bergman. It should also be noted that George Cukor hated Bette Davis (she had been part of his theatre troupe alongside Miriam Hopkins but Miriam was the star back then and Bette was known for ignoring any of George's instructions so she was kicked out), so just like Kate held Joan in high regard because of George, she probably also disliked Bette because of what George would say about her.

Ginger Rogers was Lucille Ball's best friend and she and her mother were, by Lucille's own account, Lucille's saving grace during her movie years. Lucille was fiercely devoted to her and it seems to have gone both ways. And for that reason, Lucille made little snipes at Katharine because Katharine and Ginger were so competitive with one another, and I think Ginger thought Katharine was unbearably pretentious and self-entitled, whereas Ginger's mother was a strict disciplinarian and Ginger (and Lucille) were all about hard work, rehearsal, etc.

Lots of Katharine's roles seemed to have been written specifically with her in mind, and Stage Door seems to have been written with with her and Ginger's real personalities in mind. I imagine whomever was behind the production probably was tickled by the idea of casting the two rivals as onscreen rivals who learn to appreciate one another despite their differences.

It seems like everyone was intimidated by Katharine, like she had a superstar mystique even among other superstars. Listen to how Lucille Ball speaks about her, and compare with how Bette Davis and Jane Fonda spoke about her. They're all critical in a way but ultimately they compliment her and just describe her as sort of unknowable.

I love Lucille's face the most here.

Lauren Bacall and Katharine were besties. I think Katharine was just discerning about who she was willing to spend time with and she obviously was not interested in Bette, Ginger, or Lucy.

Katharine was an 'alpha' to be sure. The famous Dick Cavett interview shows how she commanded the set be reconfigured to make her more comfortable, and also it shows how she verbally jousted with Cavett, finding an equilibrium and mutual respect.

In another video from the same interviews as I posted in R219, Lucille reveals herself to be gladly submissive, as she saw herself as a student in learning mode during the first decade of her career, and Ginger Rogers likewise submitted to her mother's commands.

Clearly, neither Katharine nor Bette ever did that except when they found directors and costars who had the same levels of self-assuredness. Katharine's whole character in Stage Door is based on her real-life approach to acting, which was to storm onto a set and pronounce that she knew what she was doing and she didn't have time for all the silliness other actors subscribed to, of getting to know and understand their characters. Just get on with it! Remember the lines and do the job!

Bette really did flatter Hepburn's appearance a lot.

Her Long Island lockjaw schtick has not aged well. I’m tired of it and can’t watch anything she’s in.

Absolutely, they were sisters from different misters !

But anyway, it's possible that people may confuse Kate Hepburn and Audrey Hepburn due to their similar last name and the fact that they were both famous actresses during Hollywood's Golden Age. Additionally, both actresses were known for their unique sense of style and elegant demeanor, which may further contribute to the confusion. However, it's important to note that the two women were born in different countries, had different backgrounds and personal lives, and had distinct acting styles. Therefore, while they may share similarities in some respects, they were not related to each other.

They were definitely sisters!

Ancestry DNA tells me that Katharine was my great grandmother *and* that Audrey was a great aunt. What are the chances that's a coincidence?

Cary Grant is one of my great grandfathers and Lucille Ball another great grandmother, btw.

^ George Santos

Bette did acknowledge Hepburn’s work ethic on Cavett. I don’t think Bette cared whether Hepburn liked her or not.

R156 - I am not an experienced veteran OP. Original Posters catch all kinds of hell on DL for not doing an Original Post correctly. I like make it a rule to stay out of the way of gunfire.

Well, they are all sort of long dead and as the years move forward less people who actually knew them will be around.

Despite on the contradictory posts in this thread as least the stars of yesteryear had some degree of mystic about them.

We know too much about most of todays 'stars' which makes them so boring.

Bette had the same freedom Whoopi Goldberg got from her mother when during childhood, Whoopi's mother told her that she will never be beautiful to most other people and she'll need to find some other way to make herself feel valuable. Bette talked often about how homely producers and directors thought she was, and she really took it in stride as freedom to potray characters in full ugly humanity, and she never gave a damn if people liked her. She just wanted her work to be valuable.

She was a dues paying member of

Daughters Of Bilitis

Davis wanted to share a cover with Kate for some magazine (a movie magazine perharps? I don't remember) it was her idea. Hepburn said no. Bette was surprised as to why she turned it down. Saying something like she's crazy, it would be a great piece.

I have no idea why Hepburn wasn't fond of Davis.

Perharps is my new favorite word.

R233 I believe that Bette just used to bitch about things and Hepburn wasn't interested in that chatter. By all accounts they were friendly but definitely not friends.

There is no evidence that either of them hated the other but friends they were not.

I think Hepburn was just focused on being the center of attention, the biggest and most powerful person in the room or on the cover at any time—at least the most powerful woman.

She seems to have admired and even demurred herself to male movie stars—interesting given her mannishness—but had to overpower women.

Jane Fonda seems to have very objective opinions most of the time and I believe her comment that Hepburn was simply very competitive and felt threatened by her because she was younger, a bigger box-office draw at the time, and a producer on the movie. All those features put Hepburn in a less-powerful position, and if we can be honest, all women and men have observed the pecking-order dynamic among women who work or live together. Some women absolutely must be the top dogs, and it can cause conflict in workplaces, and it really has nothing to do with how nice or kind they are; they just need to be recognized as the top of the pecking order or else they freak out and melt down out of insecurity. My sister is like this. She's always had to reach an equilibrium with her bosses in which she ends up the unofficial boss in the relationship, which suits her fine, regardless of formal titles and pay levels. It's a personality dynamic.

Also, Katharine was a Taurus. As a Taurus myself who embodies a lot of the stereotypes, she sounds like she had the reclusive, introverted, homebodied, hardworking, self-indulgent, stubborn qualities we are known for.

[quote] I am not an experienced veteran OP. Original Posters catch all kinds of hell on DL for not doing an Original Post correctly. I like make it a rule to stay out of the way of gunfire.

R229 To do it correctly (I'm on a laptop)...go to "Recent" at the top L. On the bottom L it should now say "NEW THREAD". Click on that and there will be a box for the thread subject. There will be a box below that for your comments. Fill both of those in, and post. That's it.

There are several letters to be found online between Hepburn and Crawford. I remember reading one Crawford sent to Hepburn about the TV movie Kate did with Laurence Olivier, Love Among The Ruins. Here's one Kate sent in response to Joan about Tracy's death and flowers Joan sent.

VI-14-1967

Dear Joan-

George told me of all your sweetness + really I did not need to be told- Spence was very very fond of you and he would have been so pleased with the lovely basket of azaleas-it is just sad- isn't it- such an unusal person- He was just tired out- I think that his big old heart had simply beat itself out- + it stopped- and he had no struggle- no terror- in a second he was dead- And it was nice that he made the picture- But what can one say- Thank you dear Joan-

Kate

(Note: George was probably George Cukor who was a friend of both Katharine's and Joan's).

Dealing with her friend, Spencer Tracy, displayed her humility. But she seems to have spent it all on him.

R239- I think that was mostly a studio thing. They were never LOVERS given that she was a TOTAL Carpet Muncher and I heard that they actually could not stand each other.

Joan seems to have been a completely lovely person to everyone except some of her children. It's so weird.

I've watched *a lot* of interviews with Christina Crawford and I find her to be totally credible. She isn't hateful toward Joan and she came to understand that Joan had her own traumas and had no idea how to parent and was overwhelmed with parenting while also being haunted by her own demons. I can't find any fault in Christina Crawford's descriptions of her mother—but it also just seems so weird because all adults in Joan's life seem to have had a lot of respect for her aside from her vanity and insecurities.

Bette Davis's daughter on the other hand is a total fucking whack job and I find every single thing she has said about her mother to be incredible. Joan certainly presented herself in a curated persona, but I have no doubt that Bette was the Bette we saw with every person in her life.

Hepburn, I do believe, was smarter than all the rest, and her arrogance was based in knowing it. She just knew better about a lot of things, and one of those things was that she was better off not having children and that "you can't have it all," and an ambitious actress who has kids is going to regret either the work or the children or both in the end. And so it came to pass.

Kate was so interesting. She really had her own worldview. She looks at a glamorous old picture of herself from The Philadelphia Story and says, "It's not a great picture," and then at a photo of herself looking older and says "This is a fun picture. Looks alive! The other one is dead." She saw vitality as beautiful and strong and had no interest in people who showed weakness.

In the video at R241, Diane Sawyer asks if Howard Hughes was 'a real possibility,' and she responds, 'now you're getting out topics that I am not interested in discussing, so you should lay off.'

I fucking love Katharine Hepburn.

R240 It was a secret to the public, it would not have been a "studio thing." Tracy was married with two children and there's no way the studio would have encouraged or revealed any relationship between him and Hepburn.

Btw here's some further correspondence between Hepburn and Crawford. On the same blog there's also mention of a letter Kate wrote Audrey (who Cukor mailed to Audrey with his own letter) praising her for My Fair Lady (which Cukor directed) after she was shut out by the Oscar nominations, etc.

*Not "who". Sorry.

Why did Kate hate Ingrid Bergman?

R245- Because Ingrid rejected Kates advances.

Seems like Joan basically sent fan letters to Kate and Kate basically replied, "Thank you; it's nice to be noticed by a peer."

I bet that really worries her a lot 🙄🙄🙄

R134 How do you know she wasn't straight? Cate Blanchett also wears suits all the time, but is straight.

R71 She never came out as bi. You are making stuff up.

I don't care how she would have identified sexually, but she was certainly 'on the spectrum.'

Cate Blanchett wearing slacks post-1990s is not at all the same as Kate Hepburn insistently wearing slacks in most of her movies from the 1930s onward.

My mother was sent home from her public school in the 1950s or1960s for wearing pants to school on a cold day because girls were supposed to wear dresses or skirts.

And Kate was matter of fact about homosexuality, expressing the theory that it's a natural adaptation to overpopulation. "We're overpopulated. It has to be straightened out. The men get feminine and the women get masculine."

[quote] Alongside a series of unpopular films, problems arose from Hepburn's attitude. She had a difficult relationship with the press, with whom she could be rude and provocative. When asked if she had any children, she snapped back, "Yes, I have five: two white and three colored." She would not give interviews and denied requests for autographs, which earned her the nickname "Katharine of Arrogance". The public was also baffled by her boyish behavior and fashion choices, and she became a largely unpopular figure.

Other than her ultra conservative religious views, what else makes BD a whack job? I’ve never read the book but I’m genuinely interested in how people always seem to believe Crawfords kid but not Davis.

My favorite Davis story involved her escort to the Academy Awards the year she lost for Baby Jane. He claimed they were at her house afterwards with Olivia deHavilland and a few others when he made the mistake of complimenting how good Crawford looked accepting the award. Davis was cutting some food and she walked over to him with the knife in her hand and asked him to repeat what he just said. Crawford wasn’t discussed anymore that evening.

R251 What was his question?

This is amazing. She failed miserably and was labeled box-office poison, and so she bought out her contract for $75,000, found a stage play (The Philadelphia Story) to star in, it was a huge hit, and she orchestrated her own comeback by selling the play to MGM contingent upon being cast as the female lead. But she was aware of how people saw and resented her and worked with that:

[quote] Before filming began, Hepburn shrewdly noted, "I don't want to make a grand entrance in this picture. Moviegoers ... think I'm too la-di-da or something. A lot of people want to see me fall flat on my face." Thus the film began with Grant knocking the actress flat on her backside. Berg describes how the character was crafted to have audiences "laugh at her enough that they would ultimately sympathize with her", which Hepburn felt was crucial in "recreating" her public image. The Philadelphia Story was one of the biggest hits of 1940, breaking records at Radio City Music Hall. The review in Time declared, "Come on back, Katie, all is forgiven."

Op= Myrna Loy

Supposedly Howard Hughes bought the rights to the play for her.

R247 Crawford wrote to everyone, she was almost (or actually) a compulsive letter-writer. She personally corresponded with many of her fans, in longhand.

As Hepburn told Joan's daughter, Joan wrote her a sweet letter every Christmas . Yet she also mentioned that she and Joan had only met one or two times! I thought Hepburn handled her correspondence with Joan gracefully. Note in Hepburn's replay to Joan's sympathy letter, she tells her that Tracy was "very very fond of you".

And she tells the daughter she enjoyed Joan's work. (The daughter - not Christina - was writing stars in order to get statements to put in a book she was writing about Joan to correct the record). In another letter to someone, Hepburn says she thinks Christina's book was nonsense and the Crawford kids were spoiled.

*reply

[quote]R236 if we can be honest, all women and men have observed the pecking-order dynamic among women who work or live together.

Thank goodness MEN never get wrapped up in such competitive trivialities, themselves!

It’s strange that when men set out to assert power it’s seen as a virtuous strength, but when women want freedom it’s a defect. (Of course, that’s because it freaks men out.)

R260 Care to back up your generalities?

I thought the latest tea to be spilled was the realization that her father was quite abusive, forcing her to take cold showers as a child, possibly part of the reason her brother killed himself. Weird stories about her ramming her head into a tree and telling somebody that she was "tougher than the tree". Her early biographers tried to water this all down into part of her mythology as some kind of Yankee wonderwoman. In truth I think her upbringing was probably fascinating what with the educated politically engaged mother but also horrific. Her brother's death severely impacted her. I also thought the father was an alcoholic? Paving the way for her to become embroiled with Spencer Tracy years later.

WHET Joy Bang

It was apparently her father who invested her Hollywood money for her, and did a good job of it.

Bless you all...

Surely she was the daughter of a doctor or lawyer.

Her father was a urologist at Hartford (CT) Hospital.

I’m the OP.

You guys have done a good job of making me reconsider. She was obviously revered. There is a lot here to go through.

But I have asked other people since making this thread and many of them thought the Hepburns were related. Mother/daughter, sisters etc so I’m not the only one, according to my informal poll.

R268 I assumed you were joking.

R216, from IMDb: Joe King ... costumes Jean Louis ... wardrobe supervisor Edna Taylor ... wardrobe: women (uncredited)

It is possible Audrey and Kate are very distant cousins but as actresses they are poles apart (thank heavens).

*

It’s weird that they didn’t comment on one another. Especially when it seemed that actresses talked about each other back then.

Audrey seems to be mostly famous for breakfast at Tiffany’s which I have not been able to make it passed the first 30 min.

Oh dear, r273.

Audrey and Katherine Hepburn weren't sisters, you moron.

[quote]Audrey seems to be mostly famous for breakfast at Tiffany’s which I have not been able to make it passed the first 30 min.

Then you'll definitely want to miss her performances in "Sabrina," "Roman Holiday" and "My Fair Lady," for which she is also quite well known. She won the Oscar as best actress for "Roman Holiday."

Charade is a classic. Also surprisingly risque (the fruit rolling scene).

Thank you r270. No wonder Kate's wardrobe was so gorgeous being designed by Jean Louis.

Jean Louis also did the fabulous Put The Blame On Mame dress for Rita Hayworth in Gilda.

Jean was *not* a fag, and I'm the dame who can prove it!

Audrey was also known for The Nun's Story (a big hit) and she was excellent in her role. Nobody ever mentions it.

It technically says Jean Louis was wardrobe supervisor so still not sure who designed the costumes.

R281 she was far too sexy for that role

Edna Taylor is listed on IMDB as "Women's costumes (uncredited)".

[quote]so still not sure who designed the costumes.

What costumes in that movie would have been designed/built, r282? I'm sure most of it was bought/altered....hence "wardrobe supervised by".

Kate's outfits in GWCTD look high end designer label to me so was interested to know the name of the designer, that's all, even if purchased at Saks or whatever.

Hepburn had fabulous legs, although her beauty was seen at the time as something different. She stood out.

I was curious as well, and read a few articles about Kate's film costumes, and personal clothing as well.

Evidently, she was very particular. Edith Head said you don't work for her, you work with her.

I doubt anything she wore was purchased off the rack.

[quote]I doubt anything she wore was purchased off the rack.

We aren't talking "off the rack" per se, Annie Hall's credits read as such:

[quote]Costume Design by Ruth Morley

[quote]Costume and Wardrobe Department

[quote]Ralph Lauren ... clothing designs by

Just substitute Jean Louis for Lauren. I assume he was responsible for Kate (and probably Houghton) as Ralph Lauren gave Keaton *her* look.

You can probably ask the neice- I'm sure she would remember and is fairly accessible.

I think this was her only Top 10 hit...

I'm currently watching Guess Who's Coming To Dinner. There are so many things to hate in that movie , Katherine Hepburn being primary amongst them

R292- She spent 3/4 of the movie GLASSY eyed- they overdid the glassy eyes to show emotion.

My favorite character was the bitchy woman who worked in her gallery.

Get PERMANENTLY lost

That's Mrs. Olsen to you, r293.

R293, they seriously overdid it with the glassy eyed thing. Overly emotional for no reason. I find it hard to believe she was 60 in that film. She looks about 80.

I always thought she looked " other wordly" someone born in the wrong era, she was ahead of her time.

I like her, her elder year interviews are fun. Even Jane Fonda’s story above about Kate is really sweet.

Let us put to rest forever the idea that Kate & Audrey "...could have been distant cousins..." an idea mentioned here recently which is obviously based merely on the fact that they shared the same last name.

Audrey Hepburn was NOT born a "Hepburn" but rather she was born in Belgium in 1929 as Audrey Kathleen Ruston. Her lineage is well explained in the link I've added below.

The link below contains some fascinating other info on Audrey Hepburn. As a bonus, there is also a fun factoid found there that points out that in 1930's Britain, The Daily Mail newspaper was an early-on supporter of the fascist political/social movement in that country.

I just recorded Charade again off of TCM and I'll soon take another look at it, i.e. probably the 7th, 8th or 9th time of viewing it throughout my lifetime. It's a fun caper film and leaves me feeling good when I'm done viewing it. After all, what's not to like: There's the Paris locale, the gorgeous Henry Mancini Charade theme, a great cast of supporting stars and the onscreen pairing of Audrey Hepburn with Cary Grant!

.[quote] After all, what's not to like:

The plot.

[quote] She spent 3/4 of the movie GLASSY eyed- they overdid the glassy eyes to show emotion.

She had a chronic eye infection (from a Venice canal in Summertime). She always looked that way as she got older.

[quote] She was far too sexy for that role

Audrey Hepburn was never far too sexy.

Dear world...

Katharine Hepburn did not respond to a request for comments about this thread.

[quote]r299 Let us put to rest forever the idea that Kate & Audrey "...could have been distant cousins..."

Agree entirely. Katherine and Audrey were not distant cousins or even first cousins, because you can’t be that when you’re mother/daughter.

See r201

I was under the weird delusion that Audrey Hepburn was of the White Russian nobility in exile. No truth to that?

When she was a child, Audrey Hepburn had her own comic book.

It's KATHArine, dahling. Kate would tongue lash you to the depths of Laura Harding's thigh if she were still alive.

Audrey Hepburn was also in The Children's Hour. With at that time groundbreaking theme of homosexuality

There's a scene in On Golden Pond, where Henry Fonda talks about the lesbian couple that lives in the neighborhood. And calling their relationship unnatural or something like that. If Katherine was really gay, wonder what she thought of that scene.

Thanks for the laugh, (301)! As if, i.e. Audrey is the daughter of Kate! LOL!

The silliness of the earlier-posted "story" (201) that claims that mother/daughter relationship between Kate and Audrey to be valid would NEVER have even gotten to first base without the coincidence of the "Hepburn" name which fed the creative thinking that started that gasbag bit of garbage rumor in the first place.

Katherine Cuntburn

If Hepburn was with men "for PR" she wouldn't have been falling for married men like John Ford and Spencer Tracy (and there were others). That was not considered PR you would want to have, back then. Nor was it known to the public. Hepburn may - may - have been bi - but not gay.

Oh please, r311, she was a double gater.

Or Leland Hayward, although he might have been between marriages when they dated.

Double gator?

Oh, Dear!

These Hepburn denialists are really too much. Next they'll be telling us that Morton Downey, Jr. and Robert Downey, Jr. aren't half brothers.

Audrey's last name was made up by her father. She's not a Hepburn, that's a stage name. Which she was advised NOT to use.

No, r314, gater.

[quote] Audrey's last name was made up by her father. She's not a Hepburn, that's a stage name. Which she was advised NOT to use.

She was advised not to use it to avoid confusing simpletons like OP even in the age of Wikipedia.

They must have had different fathers, because Katherine and Audrey don’t look very much alike at all.

R316 in one article it said the name came from Audrey’s great grandmother Kathleen Hepburn. It is interesting how she chose that name knowing there was already an established star with that name. I also read something about her trying to disassociate from her Nazi supporting parents with the name change.

Ah I see her fathers lineage is questioned. He was a fishy guy.

Did Audrey leave anything to Katherine in her will? Because that would indicate something.

I really liked her in the 1930s during her RKO years...she was refreshing and fun and made a wide variety of films. Then she got labeled "Box Office Poison" in Hollywood, went to NY and made a huge success on stage with The Philadelphia Story and made a huge comeback with an MGM contract and she wasn't as much fun and made duller films where she was "tamed".

Like many actresses of her era, she turned into a caricature of herself as she got older and became increasingly insufferable.

In real life, she seems like she was rather cunty.

And, a lesbian of course. That nonsense with Tracy was all a carefully orchestrated facade.

No shit r323. You’re like the 10th person to say that on this thread.

Have anything unique to offer?

R 324 Yeah.

Fuck off, shit head.

Who died and made you class monitor?

Try having little originality about yourself.

If we hear the “box office position” story one more time…

Box office poison!!!!!!!!!! TINA, bring me the ax!!!!

In the mind of OP, Lions and Sea Lions are practically the same animal.

Give it a rest @r329

Just because we kept the Hepburns’ secret while they were alive doesn’t mean we’re obliged to now that they’re dead.

Their whole twisted family tree should be exposed for what it was.

The box office poison thing was always a joke. The studios made that list to try and get actors (namely actresses who they felt were too uppity) to lower their salaries. When Joan left MGM, she could have stayed on but they would have paid her less. Fred Astaire was also on that list because his non-Ginger Rogers movies were flops and they felt he wasn't a commercialized star on his own.

Her brownie recipe was good. That she and her brother co-existed in the family home, as described by Scott Berg, and would compete for the kitchen and who made the best hot fudge sundaes, makes her endearing to me. I don't think she was a snob.

Hepburn shunned the Hollywood publicity machine and refused to conform to society's expectations of women, famously wearing trousers before they were fashionable for women. With her unconventional lifestyle and the independent characters she brought to the screen, Hepburn epitomized the "modern woman" in the 20th-century United States and is remembered as an important cultural figure.

r323 Holy shit, you were alive in 1930s ?

[quote]famously wearing trousers before they were fashionable for women

Untrue. Women's trousers became fashionable in the 1920s, and by the time Hepburn was wearing them, other stars like Jean Harlow, Carole Lombard, Marlene Dietrich and plenty of others were wearing them, too.

But this is a thread full of people who thought the OP genuinely believed Katharine and Audrey were sisters, so.

R15 fuck off, trying to say Meryl became a box office hit thanks to Weinstein. Nothing to do with The Devil Wears Prada or Mamma Mia being popular with all ages? You make it sound like they were in cahoots when in actual fact he didn't produce any more Streep movies than he did with other popular actresses. Next we'll be hearing Judi Dench owes her career to him as well.

And Streep had BO hits with Kramer Vs Kramer, Out Of Africa, Postcards, Death Becomes Her, The Bridges of Madison County and The Hours during Hepburn's lifetime

One of her last movies, Grace Quigley, was on tv at the weekend. Obviously she's very elderly in the film, her head and voice wobbling all over the place. A bit distracting. Nick Nolte looked like a very handsome meathead in it.

[quote]That nonsense with Tracy was all a carefully orchestrated facade. backup.

He already had a wife and kids. Why would he need to carefully orchestrate a facade of having a side relationship with another woman? Nobody here claiming their relationship didn't really exist seems to be able to answer that.

The Tracy-Hepburn relationship began in 1942 and ended with Tracy's death in 1967. He died when living with Hepburn, in the guest house on George Cukor's place. This is a fact, but was hushed up at the time. Nobody knows the nature of their relationship but they had one.

Tracy had a much more well-known (at the time) relationship with Loretta Young in the 1930s - while he was married to his wife, Louise. It almost broke up his marriage. The press of the time covered it, and their break-up. Young issued a statement to the press. Seems odd to go through all that and risk losing your career, for a gay man.

There were a lot of films from her RKO contract that were pretty bad. Christopher Strong, The Little Minister, Mary Of Scotland, Quality Street, Sylvia Scarlett, Break Of Hearts, A Woman Rebels., Spitfire. The only good ones were her first one (A Bill Of Divorcement), Morning Glory, Little Women, Stage Door, and Bringing Up Baby. (Holiday was made on loan-out to Columbia).

At MGM she started out strong with The Philadelphia Story and Woman Of The Year (co-starring Tracy). Without Love, Keeper Of The Flame, Adam's Rib, Pat And Mike, State Of The Union, and The Sea Of Grass were all hits, co-starring Tracy. Undercurrent was a hit. She also made The African Queen (not for MGM). Dragon Seed did good business but with it's very high production cost didn't turn a profit. Song Of Love wasn't successful at the box office.

R337 Actually Judi Dench does owe her film career to Harvey. It started when he acquried Mrs. Brown (1997) which was a hit and he kept casting her in films.

She was already in huge success for decades in the UK in the theatre and TV but her cinema outings prior to Mrs. Brown was all rather minor. Though some of the films she made post Harvey were great like A Room with a View & Wetherby she only played minor supporting roles.

Harvey made Judi Dench's US cinema career. Without him she may have broken out anyway but we'll never know.

In the 30s and 40s Hepburn also starred on stage in The Lake (1934) - a flop. Jane Eyre toured but didn't go to Broadway. Philadelphia Story was a big hit in NY and on tour. Without Love was another show she did in NY in the 40s.

R347 I know, Judi wasn't the best example, but it's not fair to dismiss someone's achievements or popularity as being a result of Weinstein's machinations as R15 partially suggested. People love shitting on Streep like she was bosom buddies with Harvey but she had much fewer dealings with him than many other A-listers and he arguably cost her Oscar wins 3 times in the 2000s through his campaigning for CZJ, Mirren & Winslet.

If the Hepburn-Tracy affair was just a façade, it was a façade meant only to fool their personal circle of industry and social acquaintances; the general public didn't know about it until after Tracy died. Why would an elaborate bearding arrangement be mounted and sustained—and, as R339 said, when Tracy already had a heterosexual family that could have served—just to keep a private circle of friends and coworkers in the dark?

Glenn Close was asked about Weinstein. She never worked with him, I don't think she ever had any kind of engagement with him. So, when asked did she know Weinstein was a creep, she said no, but she did hear gossip, rumours. In the makeup trailer on set, she heard the make up crew telling stories about actress x who worked with Weinstein and told them about her experience, and her lucky escape. Stuff like that. Basically it was common knowledge backstage, so to speak, that Weinstein had a sleazy rep. But Meryl heard nothing. Absolutely nothing.

R344 I think it was a facade to shield Hepburn post Tracy. Hepburn herself started to tell of her great, doomed love with Tracy, now conveniently dead. Possibly some of her stories were exaggerated, or seriously embellished. Anyway, their "love affair" became public in the 70s onwards. All to Hepburn's benefit.

Tracy seems to have been a married, closeted drunk. God knows if he ever had a sexual relationship with Hepburn.

A fake two-decade relationship was contrived to so that the public wouldn't suspect an actress of lesbianism once she was a senior citizen?

R346 Did you forget there was a best-selling book by Garson Kanin, Tracy And Hepburn? The news had been broken a bit previously but Kanin made the affair world-famous, and Hepburn didn't speak to him after that. She was reportedly very pissed about the invasion of privacy (and the book is very flattering about them). She only started talking about Tracy after the cat was out of the bag.

Tracy may have been a frustrated homo or bi, but the fact is he had affairs with women and it's not a secret - Loretta Young, Joan Crawford - possibly Judy Garland. Joan Fontaine in her autobio said he hit on her when he was both married and with Hepburn. Seems he was after Grace Kelly, also.

If he was with Scotty Bowers, that seems to remain the only story about him being into men. Not saying he couldn't have been, but where is the rest of the proof?

Hepburn took @ 7 or 8 years off her film career in the early 60s to take care of Tracy, who was sick. To keep him on the wagon, also. Who does that just to maintain a facade?

Scotty Bowers was full of shit

R317 How do you know she swung both ways?

That's what Irene Selznick said (according to Mann), r351.

R352 What did Irene Selznick say about herself?

Miss Hepburn to OP:

Hartford Courant report on death of Tom Hepburn:

[quote]r334 Hepburn refused to conform to society's expectations of women, famously wearing trousers before they were fashionable for women

I misread this as “FURIOUSLY wearing trousers”… and was trying to picture it.

R352 Thanks. Can you write what exactly did she say about Katherine and her dating life?

I read the book so many years ago, r357, I only remember that was the term Mann quoted her as using.

R358 Damn. Thanks anyway

She used it in a derogatory sense, r359. Read the book.

Bette admits to an affair with Spence during 20,000 Years In Sing Sing, maybe another reason for Kate's distaste for her. Bette also slept with Howard Hughes, and is credited with curing his impotency. Kate of course, got the glam treatment in The Aviator, so there's that angle, too.

But ya aaaah, Howahd, ya aaah impotent!

Had no idea that Bette had affairs with Spence and Howard Hughes. Also, as Jane Fonda said, Kate was highly competitive, and she knew her only rival in Hollywood at the time was Bette. Bette held the most Oscar nominations for Best Actress until Kate broke her record.

R360 How do you mean she used it in a derogatory sense? Weren't they friends?

Yes, r364, but she didn't approve of that aspect of Kate.

How odd that Hepburn was competitive about Oscars yet never picked one up in person.

She admitted that didn't go, r366, because...what if she lost? She knew they were nonsense but she took the self-deprecating route and so her non-appearances weren't held against her.

So interesting she didn't like Meryl but loved Julia Roberts. And at one time there was headline that read something like "the world's most famous actress and the world's best actress" when they finally worked together.

I never liked her much as an actress. She seemed too in her head, too mechanical. Always *shake, shake, shake*.

R369 Oh, click, click, click off.

Either Siskel or Ebert didn't like Meryl Streep either. Something about she does too much as an actress and doesn't have enough mystery about her. Not sure I understood the comment but I'm not really a fan - in Silkwood, I thought Cher was the better actress.

Oh Kate!! It just occurred to me that *I'm* the same age that you were in On Golden Pond! Here I am in my last film.

R371 - Diana Scarwid, in a supporting role, was also great in Silkwood.

R372 Hideous.

Bette liked Meryl...

R350, Scotty Bowers was right on target. In fact many other he did not name in his docu and book because they were still alive. I knew about Scotty in the late 70s incuding several very hot guys who were part of his crew. I did not know the truth about Hepburn until shortly after she passed away and Liz Smith weighed in with the truth-

R376 You believe that he had a threesome with Lana Turner and Ava Gardner or that he set up Katherine Hepburn with 150 women?

Meryl Streep is mostly awful, Katharine Hepburn only sometimes awful. I’d rather watch any Hepburn movie than one of Streep’s middlebrow dreckfests designed to showcase her alleged superior acting prowess. Most actresses of her generation are as talented and frequently better than her.

It was Andrew Sarris who disliked Streep. One of the few things he and Kael saw eye to eye on.

Streep’s reputation is mainly due to her incredible publicists, a lazy industry, and her average (but moneyed white bread) looks and aura making her more likeable to frauen as she aged. Hepburn worked with some of the greatest directors of all time in major leading roles in some of the greatest films of all time.

Is Streep at her best really leaps and bounds (as has often been touted) above the best work of Glenn Close? Jessica Lange? Sigourney Weaver? Anjelica Huston? Sissy Spacek? Susan Sarandon? Judy Davis? Kathleen Turner? Even Sally Field, Diane Keaton, Debra Winger or Barbara Hershey? You get it. The answer is absolutely not. In fact, I’d argue she’s not nearly effective as half of these women on the top of their game.

And let’s not even get into foreign actresses. Charlotte Rampling farting for an hour would be more evocative on screen than Streep’s ever been, much less the frequently jaw dropping work of the likes of Liv Ullmann or Isabelle Huppert.

I love them both, r378.

I have liked Streep on some occasions and they’re mostly comedic fluff ones. I thought she was wonderful in Death Becomes Her.

She was a cunt.

She wasn't a fan of intercourse, r382...according to Mann.

[quote] It was Andrew Sarris who disliked Streep. One of the few things he and Kael saw eye to eye on.

John Simon wasn't a fan of Streep either, and like Kael, only found her tolerable in comedies. His review of her in Sophie's Choice:

[quote] Meryl Streep, despite a good Polish accent, is wrong for Sophie. Every five minutes, it seems, someone—man, woman, child, or beast gushes about Sophie’s beauty. Even as a shorn-headed, emaciated camp inmate, she all but turns the commandant’s head, not to mention softening the hard Nazified heart of his mean daughter, with her loveliness. Whoever looks at her, from Auschwitz to Brooklyn, is smitten: yet Miss Streep is only a decently ordinary-looking woman whose wide, angular face is imperfectly filled out by her features, even when they are as large and wavy as her nose. Though an impressive actress in comedy and character parts, she was not cut out for femmes fatales or ethereal leading ladies. It may well be her miscasting in The French Lieutenant’s Woman, the worthless Still of the Night, and now this that propels her into compensation by overacting. She has become more mannered from role to role; as Sophie, she takes an unconscionable time to deliver her lines, what with moues, hesitancies, false starts, medial pauses, grace notes of every sort. A good quarter-hour of the film’s unendurable length might have been lopped off had Pakula gotten her to play straight.

He also said Marin Mazzie's mouth looked like a garage door going up and down.

John Simon was just a bitch, I don’t count him as a legitimate critic. I consider even Rex Reed to be more of a legitimate critic than Simon.

Also I do wonder why we, as a public, are meant to buy La Streep as a great beauty? She’s totally plain. Bordering on homely. Another point in favor of Hepburn is that she never played any roles that made her out to be some drop dead gorgeous type.

[quote]I can’t stand Katherine Hepburn

And she called you a cunt, OP, but only asking what we thought of you.

She said, "Wouldn't "cunt" be nicer than that?

[quote]Also I do wonder why we, as a public, are meant to buy La Streep as a great beauty?

She was never sold that way, r387.

R387 Not exactly, but she has been cast in many roles (Sophie's Choice, The French Lieutenant's Woman, Manhattan, She-Devil, Out of Africa...most of her parts, really, she's been miscast in) that imply her to be some sexpot or stunning head-turner. That is the one thing John Simon got right in his criticism.

[quote]be some sexpot or stunning head-turner

Wrong, and your examples don't prove your point, r390.

Karen Blixen was *such* a sexpot, r390!

R392 She was meant to be attractive in the film. Sydney Pollack initially didn't want Streep because he thought she wasn't attractive enough to be paired off with Redford. The role had been meant for the likes of Greta Garbo. Julie Christie, and Audrey Hepburn over the many years it had been in development.

R386 = Sylvia Miles

[quote]Also I do wonder why we, as a public, are meant to buy La Streep as a great beauty?

Hardly a great beauty. She might have done well entering a Celeste Holm lookalike contest.

Bette Davis was unbeleivable as a great New York society beuaty in Mr. Skeffington. You do need to be a beauty to play a beauty. I also didn't really buy Geraldine Page as the glamorous movie star, Alexandra Del Lago, in Sweet Bird Of Youth. But Meryl's looks aside, I have rarely found her to be brilliant. Her popularity baffles me except she's a ikeable person and that comes across onscreen. I don't think she has the bearing or innate class or breeding to play some of the things she has been cast in, though. A baroness, or whatever. She seems like she grew up in the suburbs of the East Coast, which I think she did.

It's easy to complain that Meryl is overrated because you CAN'T claim she's underrated. She's the best actress of her AND Hepburn's generation. And Hepburn knew that and was a jealous petty woman.

They were half sisters. Kate’s father remarried after Kate’s mother died from excessive suffragetism. Look it up in the Merck Manual. Audrey’s mother was a penniless and pound foolish Belgian countess reduced to trawling for the bereaved. It was a love match.

Weren't Kate and Audrey Landers sisters as well? Or was I thinking of Judy?

It's hard for me to believe Scotty Bowers set her up with 150 prostitutes. And none of them ever said anything to anyone. Besides Betty Page, supposedly. Katherine just didn't seem like the type that would have sex with random prostitutes. But you never know...

K Hepburn didn’t come from money. Her father was a doctor. In the very beginning, her father put her on an allowance and he managed her money. She never bought a house in Los Angeles. In the Kanin memoir, there were a dozen properties identified as hers but she always rented in California.

R399 That was Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren.

R401 She inherited the huge family house in Connecticut, "Fenwick", and had a house in New York City (Turtle Bay).

The original house was destroyed in the hurricane of 1938, a new house was built in its place.

The Hepburn home:

R400 I can't believe it, either. Besides all I remember reading in his book was that she asked him to set her up with young women that she could take walks with and talk to - walks around the Hollywood reservoir, stuff like that. I don't remember him writing about 150 prostitutes.

I loved Hepburn in "On Golden Pond."

Back in 2004, ahead of Sotheby's two-day auction, I had the chance to view Hepburn's many belongings. Sotheby's had laid everything out as though you were walking around her house. There were distinct "rooms," although without traditional walls.

What struck me was how ordinary it all was. If you didn't know the furniture and other items on display were those of a Hollywood star, you didn't have a clue. I remember they were even auctioning a checkbook, I guess for her signature.

There was a controversy regarding one of her Oscars. Initially, it was to be part of the auction, but her relatives complained and the statuette was withdrawn.

Kate was certainly never a compliment giver. Yet she openly said she liked Julia Roberts and Melanie Griffith very much. But hated Meryl, Jane Fonda, Joan Crawford and Bette Davis. Treated them all like Julia treats Sandra Bullock. Like she doesn't exist when Sandra has only ever had kind words to say about Julia Roberts.

R405 From Dailymail, not going to link it since DL doesn't allow links from DM: "He secured about 150 women over 50 years for none other than Katharine Hepburn, Scotty claims, labeling her a closet lesbian whose relationship with Spencer Tracy was for show – with Scotty insisting the heartthrob married actor was also actually gay (and he had sleepovers with him, too)."

Why would she need young women to walk around Hollywood? She had friends. And why would she need 150 different ones, wouldn't she get the same ones, the ones she knows and likes? Also, how would she know Scotty if she wasn't in the gay circles? Betty Page supposedly claimed that she was set up to sleep with a woman and that woman turned out to be Katherine Hepburn.

The misinformation on this thread is pathetic. Kate's mother was from the Corning Glass family on her mother's side.

Fenwick was her childhood weekend/summer home, long before she made money.

And to the poster that said Meryl was the greatest actress of her or Kate's generation, you MUST be joking.

Spencer Tracey had a fixation on Van Johnson. Slept in bed with a photo of Van by his bedside.

I really miss the old time DLers that had tea.

This is BS posting. She was friends with Laura Harding for years. Why would she want whores?

R411 What does her being friends with Laura Harding has to do with the subject?

I’d bet my wigs that Katherine’s pussy stunk!

[quote] But hated Meryl, Jane Fonda, Joan Crawford and Bette Davis.

She didn't hate Joan Crawford. That's an utter lie which has been debunked numerous times in this thread alone. They didn't meet socially but they corresponded via letters and deeply respected each other. Kate believed in Joan's innocence until the end.

The rest of those bitches though Kate definitely hated.

Miss Hepburn liked only one contemporary actress. Why did she like Julia more than Meryl?

R415 The evidence is on the screen.

R412, oh Honey. Please. If you don't know about Laura, exit this thread.

R417 I know about Laura. Again, why wouldn't she want to sleep with young women just because she was friends with Laura Harding?

Kate and Ali.

I'm guessing Hepburn was complimentary to the likes of Melanie and Julia as she saw them as charming but in no way her competition. Did she ever say nice things about an actress considered to be very talented? Being nice to those you consider less talented doesn't threaten your own sense of superiority.

On the other hand, Streep goes out of her way to not just compliment her peers but say how they do things she'd never be able to do, or how much better they were in particular roles than she would have been. Can't imagine Hepburn (or Davis) being this generous.

Incidentally, has Lange ever effused over a peer?

377, yes. Absolutely.

[quote] Bette acted like she hated Crawford but that wasn't the case. In private she admitted to Ryan Murphy

Honey, stop.

[quote] K Hepburn didn’t come from money. Her father was a doctor.

THAT’S coming from money.

Hepburn’s wealth was earned from her career. She did not inherit a significant amount of money. A brother lived in her CT house into old age. This was a family summer home (Old Saybrook) that she rebuilt after a fire in I believe the 1930s. She also lived in a townhouse in the Turtle Bay ‘hood of Manhattan. .

Maybe Katharine liked to keep Bette at arm's length because their backgrounds were more similar than, say, Katharine's and Spencer Tracy's, and thus Katharine may have been more attuned to the ways in which Bette's Yankee background was different to her own (the narcissism of small differences). After Bette's parents divorced, her mother became a photographer and I think she paid some of Bette's tuition by taking the graduation pictures for the school. They were both quite closely identified with that background - Katharine had that physical vitality and no-nonsense attitude (one of her biographies was called Hollywood Yankee) and Bette mentions being a Yankee in almost every single interview with her I've ever seen.

Audrey Hepburn's sister was Jayne Hepburn...

It's very true that Kate almost NEVER shared the screen with another actress that could challenge her physical beauty (in youth and thru middle age) or acting talent. Although an atypical personality in many ways, by contrast her old fashioned insecurity and jealousy of other women was completely typical.

R424, are you posting just to post?

It was a storm, not a fire that destroyed the home, and Kate came from money. That's been established.

Upper middle class money, r428.

Lucy on Katharine.

Mother was an heiress to the Corning Glass fortune.

It’s now spring and the PUSSY FLAPS are in bloom again.

That house is gigantic and gorgeous. The bedrooms are huge. It’s probably on a lot of acres. I bet it would get a fortune on the public market.

Streep overpraises her (frequently better) peers, IMO, because she knows herself she’s overpraised by everyone else. It’s her way of keeping herself in check, not buying into her hype.

I actually really like Lange for not doing the faux-compliments crap. I remember watching some GoldDerby (?) I think interview where she was asked about Streep, and what her favorite Streep performance was and she just didn’t respond to the question and talked about Kim Stanley. Made me crack up.

Davis also did not really want to share the screen with people who she felt were her equal or better - she liked working with De Havilland because they both were aware that Olivia was a rung below Bette. I think this is also why she hated Miriam Hopkins so much, she was (during the time they made Old Acquaintance) a highly respected actress, who had been regarded as a great dramatic talent during the time Bette was stuck in shitty Warners contract films. Same with Lillian Gish. It must please Bette to no end she’s better remembered than both now. The difference between her and Kate is that she also applied this maxim to her leading men. Kate worked with some of the biggest male stars of her time, Bette very rarely had a huge star as her lead beyond her early stardom films with Bogie and Cagney.

I mean it WOULD have pleased Bette. She is dead now, obviously.

You really need to do better research, r434. Her problem with Miriam was that Miriam would pull all sorts of focus stealing tricks during filming. That's the *only* thing I ever heard her complain about. She would also add that Miriam didn't need to do that because she was a good actress.Also, being at different studios meant their leading men wouldn't have a big crossover. You went to see a *Bette Davis* picture, the status of her leading man wasn't that important. You didn't go see a *Katherine Hepburn* picture, you went to a Tracy *and* Hepburn picture or a Cary Grant *and* Hepburn picture or a Bogart *and* Hepburn picture.

I find funny how Crawford hated Norma Shearer for daring to be Mrs. Irving Thalberg. It seems she let it go after Norma retired and wasn't a threat anymore, though.

R437 I think they were fine later on in life after Norma retired. There are pics of them at events together where they seem cordial and Norma had this to say about the feud.

[quote] I like and admire Joan. And I believe she feels the same way about me. I hope so. I think both of us have been hurt and embarrassed by the persistent stories of our rivalry and hatred…How could I hate Joan? She is so much like me. We have both been through so many of the same painful but invaluable molding processes. We have both had to fight desperately to overcome self-consciousness. We have both made ourselves over, both struggled to create an illusion of glamor and beauty.

R434 is correct. Bette hated Miriam because in their early days, Miriam was the star. Both were part of George Cukor's acting troupe. Miriam was the lead and Bette was the nobody who hated taking orders from anyone and got kicked out because she was so belligerent. Cukor hated her (and that's probably another reason Hepburn hated Davis since she heard all the negative stories about Bette being a diva before she was even famous) which is why she's one of the only major actresses he never worked with. Bette would cover up her jealousy of Miriam by claiming Miriam was a lesbian who hit on her (the same accusation she made about Joan). Miriam and Tallulah Bankhead got all the Tennessee Williams plays on stage and we all know that Bette would play Tallulah's roles onscreen which pissed Tallulah off. Not only was Miriam a Tennessee Williams favorite but she was also Margaret Mitchell's choice to play Scarlett O'Hara and Bette was desperate to play that part. Jezebel was Miriam Hopkins' role on stage. The play flopped but Miriam had the rights to it and sold them to WB with the caveat that she would play the role onscreen but WB reneged on the deal and gave it to Bette.

R434 Lange has too much class to lie through her teeth and overpraise Streep. Even Glenn doesn't bother to pretend they're friends. She said this about Streep. [quote] I have never been close friends with Meryl,

It's also funny that Bette looked down on Olivia because Olivia was closer to her in winning a 3rd Oscar. Had Olivia not turned down A Streetcar Named Desire, giving Vivien Leigh the part, she could probably have been the first actor to ever win 3 Oscars. I think that would have killed Bette even more that a friend she never viewed as a threat took the mantle she felt she deserved. Bette was an absolute boor to Lillian Gish, but Gish was the one who came out of it looking better and she got the critical praise for The Whales of August whereas everyone felt Bette was just playing herself and nothing special. Gish had this to say about Bette and how awful she looked onscreen. [quote] "That face! Have you ever seen such a tragic face? Poor woman! How she must be suffering! I don't think it's right to judge a person like that. We must bear and forbear."

Gish also was shocked by how vehemently Bette demanded top billing and thought it was beneath an artist. [quote] "Oh dear, I just can't deal with that sort of thing. I don't care what they do with my name. If they leave it off, so much the better. It's the work I love, not the glory."

And I agree that Bette had maybe the worst collection of male leads compared to her contemporaries. She only had Bogie, Fonda, and Errol Flynn who she hated. There's the one movie with Spencer Tracy early on but she has the generic girlfriend role. She always wanted to work with him again but that never happened. She was also desperate to work with Gable. In comparison, Joan worked with Gable, Jimmy Stewart, Gary Cooper, Fred Astaire, Spencer Tracy, Robert Taylor, John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Dana Andrews, and both Barrymores. The only big stars she missed out on were Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart, and Gregory Peck.

Oh pray tell, r439, exactly which Tennessee Williams plays did Miriam do? Regarding Tallulah, she did two Williams *revivals*, one lasted 11 days and the other...4.

[quote]r367 She admitted that didn't go because.. .what if she lost?

Katherine didn’t want to go to the Oscars because it meant she’d have to give up her cross dressing for the night and put on a goddamn [italic]dress.[/italic]

Fuckin’ bull dyke.

I kind of love Glenn's active bitchery towards Meryl. Lange doesn't say anything but Glenn's made all sorts of pithy comments about Meryl.

As I also stated, r442...

[quote]She knew they were nonsense but she took the self-deprecating route and so her non-appearances weren't held against her.

[quote]r398 They were half sisters. Kate’s father remarried after Kate’s mother died from excessive suffragetism. Look it up in the Merck Manual. Audrey’s mother was a penniless and pound foolish Belgian countess reduced to trawling for the bereaved. It was a love match.

Someone upthread said Audrey was Kath’s love child with Jed Harris.

So, that’s wrong?

[quote]R400 Katherine just didn't seem like the type that would have sex with random prostitutes.

Well, what other women would she have sex with when between Laura Hardings? She couldn’t have approached starlets or she risked gossip, blackmail etc. I think Bowers’ girls and boys were pre screened to be honorable and discreet. Like all the best high end hoes are. They want relaxed, repeat customers, not to be blackballed out of the business, themselves.

[quote] You didn't go see a *Katherine Hepburn* picture, you went to a Tracy *and* Hepburn picture or a Cary Grant *and* Hepburn picture or a Bogart *and* Hepburn picture.

I'd say Little Women, Morning Glory, Christopher Strong, A Woman Rebels, Dragon Seed, and Summertime were "Katharine Hepburn pictures."

Little Women was about the title with a perfectly cast Kate, r447, and was only her fourth movie. Morning Glory was her third. Christopher Strong, A Woman Rebels, and Dragon Seed weren't successful. I'll give you Summertime, but that also owes a bit to being based on a successful play and a certain Mr. David Lean.

[quote]r403 She inherited the huge family house in Connecticut, "Fenwick", and had a house in New York City (Turtle Bay)

Didn’t she own the Connecticut house along with her brother? It would be rather callous for the parents to give it to a movie star daughter and render the sibling homeless (much as Kate might have liked that.)

[quote]R412 What does her being friends with Laura Harding has to do with the subject?

Because LAURA was her long term CARPET MUNCHER.

[quote] I'd say Little Women, Morning Glory, Christopher Strong, A Woman Rebels, Dragon Seed, and Summertime were "Katharine Hepburn pictures."

Don’t forget Alice Adams. Fred MacMurray, at that time, was nothing more than a bit player on par with George Brent.

R450 Sure thing

R442 Why should she put on a dress for the Oscars, you dumbass?

R446 "Bowers’ girls and boys were pre screened to be honorable and discreet."

Wasn't he a gas station worker?

[quote]This is also why even with deceased actresses, that we never saw a movie with say Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Katharine Hepburn, Vivien Leigh, Olivia de Havilland, and Joan Fontaine all together.

I think it has far more to do with the fact that many of them had contracts with different studios during the Golden Age of Hollywood.

Davis: Warners

Crawford: MGM, then Warners

Hepburn: RKO

Vivien Leigh: independent

Olivia de Havilland: Warners, then Paramount

Joan Fontaine: RKO, then mostly independent

Barbara Stanwyck was also a freelancer, like Cary Grant.

[quote]r441 Oh pray tell, [R439], exactly which Tennessee Williams plays did Miriam do?

It was called BATTLE OF ANGELS, and produced by the Theater Guild (1940)

Uh-huh, r457, that certainly compares to Bette doing Iguana on Broadway.

[quote]it starred Miriam Hopkins and was directed by Margaret Webster, it folded up after the tryout in Boston. “I never heard of an audience getting so infuriated,” Williams told us. “They hissed so loud you couldn’t hear the lines, and that made Miriam so mad that she began to scream her lines above the hissing. Then they stamped their feet, and after a while most of them got up and left, banging their seats behind them.

She was from a very old and wealthy NE family. The Houghton family are the people behind Corningware; they endowed the rare books library at Harvard which is named after them and may be the best rare books library in the world after the British Library and the Library of Congress.

[quote]R454 "Bowers’ girls and boys were pre screened to be honorable and discreet."…. Wasn't he a gas station worker?

Does someone have to be a Princeton grad to recruit, train, and pimp discrete whores?

R448 And whose name was above the title?

If some of you haven't read her autobiography yet, I have enjoyed it several times over the years. Oh yes - she called it "Me", probably because she thought it was simple enough, but also alludes to her huuuuge ego, which she also admits to having at many points during the book. She says why she called it this, but I don't exactly remember. Anyhow, nice that someone with a more than healthy ego can also admit it.

The pictures are great, and the content can clear up the Old Saybrook (Fenwick) house taken by a hurricane debate - there is a photo of Kate in the bathtub amongst the ruins of the house (forget the year).

I see this tome is selling for between $43 and $4 on eBay, for some reason. Kindle price on Amazon is about $16, hardcover $20.

Well, r462, she'd already won an Oscar and Jo *is* the lead.

R464 It's also the only version of Little Women that gives the actress playing Jo solo billing over the title.

Tell me about it, r465.

[quote] She was also desperate to work with Gable.

R440 Home From The Hill (1960), which starred Robert Mitchum and Eleanor Parker, was originally going to star Gable and Davis. But Gable was no longer under contract to MGM and didn't want to work for the company again.

Katharine Hepburn also had a chance to work with Gable when she was offered the comedy, Key To The City (1950) - which she ultimately declined (Loretta Young played it).

Good lord, I haven't seen Key to the City in decades.

If Clark Gable could barely stand the independent minded Vivien Leigh, the pushy, completely unvarnished Katherine Hepburn would give him waking nightmares.

When asked by Mayer who she wanted as her costars in The Philadelphia Stry, she said Tracy and Gable (the most popular male stars at the time). He have her Grant and Stewart.

Williams first asked Tallulah Bankhead to play Myra Torrance in "Battle of Angels," and she told him, "The play is impossible, darling, but sit down and have a drink with me." Enter Hopkins, whom Williams called a "magnificent bitch." He rewrote it as "Orpheus Descending," renamed Myra "Lady," and it was later filmed as "The Fugitive Kind" with Anna Magnani.

Also thought they were sisters.

Sadly, Rock Hudson's daughter, Jennifer Hudson, won an Oscar, while he never did.

Elizabeth Taylor’s name was Lizzie Hobelwitz before she married Robert Taylor.

[quote]Sadly, Rock Hudson's daughter, Jennifer Hudson, won an Oscar, while he never did.

Was that his daughter with Oscar nominated Kate Hudson? Lots of talent in that family. A true Hollywood dynasty.

[quote]Elizabeth Taylor’s name was Lizzie Hobelwitz before she married Robert Taylor.

Anne Baxter's real name was Gertrude Slescynski.

Her pussy stank!

R467- She looks very DYKEY in that photo.

R478 Because she isn't wearing makeup.

Loved her in Bringing Up Baby, Alice Adams, Long Day's Journey into Night and Summertime. Versatile and very talented.

She was one of the few stars of the 30's who could still star in a romantic lead in a movie like Summertime at almost 50 years old. Jean Arthur in Shane was another (but that was her last film).

[quote]romantic lead in a movie like Summertime at almost 50 years old.

Leona/Jane is a character lead, r481. She's an old maid.

R482 Have you seen the movie? Rossanno Brazzi looking at her beautiful legs in the Piazza? Kate dolled up in the beautiful gown to go out dancing...the romantic motorboat trip, and the love scenes? It's a far cry from Shirley Booth in Time Of The Cuckoo. The movie is a romantic drama. She may possibly be an old maid (though that's never stated, and I'm not sure) but her fling is presented as a love story.

I didn't say it wasn't a romance, r483, but the role is hardly a glamorous one and Kate was definitely looking her age.

484 So do you think Bette Davis, Miriam Hopkins, Norma Shearer, Constance Bennett, or other big stars of the 30s could have pulled off the necessary beauty, attractiveness and vivacity to play the part opposite Rossano Brazzi and make the audience accept it or want to watch? That was my original point, and I don't think so. Hepburn had a certain agelessness and she kept her figure (not having kids probably helped). She didn't look that much different in the 50s than she did in the 40s.

R484^

I love guys feet and cocks I’m a pig

Uh, WHAT, R487?

I was molested.

[quote]R487 I love guys feet and cocks I’m a pig

[quote]R488 Uh, WHAT?

It was Katherine posting from beyond the grave… asserting her (alleged) heterosexuality.

It's Katharine you moron.

I love Jean Arthur. She do want get enough credit these days. Great voice!!

R479 Did she gest to you too Lorna. She molsheted mom.

I wonder what Ms Meryl thinks of Kate preferring Julia Roberts to her.

Katharine was an unusual beauty but she was at least considered a beauty in her heydays. Meryl was always a frau.

Her days of hey.

R181 What was her fued with Lucile Watson?

*Or feud

R185 I dispute that Hepburn was 5'8". Especially in her 70s.

I think Meryl was a different type of leading lady than I think Kate was talking about when she was commenting on younger actresses. Meryl was never gonna be the kind she was commenting on.

I just think she thought Meryl wasn't very good.

Meryl couldn't be a plug in actress because she was a little too serious and not a someone empirically attractive like Roberts who most straight men lusted after.

R499, women can shrink up to 2 inches as they age, men slightly less.

R503 And Hepburn was only 5' 7" to begin with - around the same height as Lucille Ball.

R502 I don't think Kate ever looked at Meryl as a leading lady like Roberts

R500 But Kate did comment on Meryl 'Click, Click, Click' she said. 'You can see the wheels turning'.

Meryl is not a traditional leading lady like Hepburn wan and she eluded to Julia was. Roberts is a leading lady you can plug into roles. The same way Tom Cruise could be plugged into cocky young blank...

R497 Lucile Watson was a right-wing Republican. She worked with Bette on Watch on the Rhine, a very left-wing movie which was anti-Nazi and made during WWII. It wasn't a big role for Davis but she believed in the story very much but had issues with just about everyone on set. Lucile Watson and her especially did not get along because of their polarizing political views.

I forgot that Bette also had a feud with Karen Black in Burnt Offerings. I don't think Bette liked Oliver Reed on that film either because he was consistently drunk.

Almost any Meryl Streep role could have been played better by another actress. Glenn Close or Sigourney Weaver in The Devil Wears Prada, Jessica Lange in The Bridges of Madison County, Glenn Close in One True Thing or Doubt, Liv Ullmann in Sophie's Choice (she was the original choice for the movie anyway), etc.

Has Meryl ever done Shakespeare or Tennessee Williams like Glenn and Jessica have?

[quote]Has Meryl ever done Shakespeare or Tennessee Williams like Glenn and Jessica have?

I saw Streep and Raul Julia in "The Taming of the Shrew" at the Delacorte Theater in 1978.

Are you aure it wasn't the Burt Reynolds dinner theater?

Your mean the Mr. Burt Reynolds Dinner Theater?

Streep in Tennessee got a Tony nom.

Meryl and Raul in "The Taming of the Shrew."

Meryl Street is okay, a perfectly competent actress. They built her up into something she's not. She's best when she isn't doing all the accents or stretching herself. Hepbuen just seemed to be a personality actress but she actually did stretch herself over time and was moving and touching - or funny - she really reached your emotions.

*Streep

Katherine Hepburn was one of my mother's favorite actresses. We went to see her in the West Side Waltz, where she performed onstage at the Curran Theater, San Francisco, in 1981. She dominated the stage in a role about an eccentric woman living in a West Side apartment.

I loved her early work, especially Bringing up Baby, Stage Door, Little Women, and other older classic films. She was very imperious, not a likeable trait, and I did not find her autobiography heartwarming. She wrote of her affair with Spencer Tracy. I doubt they actually had sex, her story didn't ring true. She seems sexless to me. Untouchable and remote. I think she bragged of the affair to fool people, not because it was passionate and sexy, but to show she was once involved with a man. She didn't speak about it until after Tracy's death. That's my takeaway from her book anyway. I linked an article, published today, I just found that supports my suspicions.

Oops, mistake, the article was published in 2018, but the link has today's date.

This thread is a smash hit. Not too many of those these days.

Garson Kanin's fawning book alleged it was a real affair, how seriously can we take this article? I do believe Hepburn had affairs with women but the chemistry between her and Tracy was palpable.

I adored her when I was younger. But reading her interviews and books and articles about her made me realize that she had a very high opinion of herself. Then I discovered Barbara Stanwyck and Bette Davis. Love several of her movies but she sounds like she was insufferable to be around.

[quote]She dominated the stage in a role about an eccentric woman living in a West Side apartment.

Dorothy held her own, r517.

[quote]but the chemistry between her and Tracy was palpable.

Indeed it was, r520, but it wasn't a sexual chemistry. How often do they even kiss?

R517 How was she sexless when Scotty Bowers set her up with 150 women?

She looks fantastic in that picture in R517 where she's on horseback.

Was she really into skateboarding?

This thread is hilarious. It’s 500+ posts long, started this month, and KP is dead.

There doesn't need to be kissing for sexual chemistry. Kate and Spencer had it.

Really, r528....really? You can imagine Spence and Kate (with her Bryn Mawr accent) goin' at it hot and heavy? "Oh Spence, Spence, how you set my loins aflame."

Actually, yes. She took off 5 years to take care of him, so there was something there.

INot saying there weren't women mixed in with Howard Hughes and her other Hollywood boyfriends.

[quote]R492 I love Jean Arthur. She do want get enough credit these days. Great voice!!

Gene Arthur is one of my favorites. So pretty.

[quote]R509 Has Meryl ever done Shakespeare or Tennessee Williams like Glenn and Jessica have?

She was only nominated for a Tony for it.

I remember reading somewhere that Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. had a date with Hepburn, and he couldn't find her around the studio. Finally he saw her in a car with Charles Boyer and they were passionately kissing. Boyer was her costar at the time in Break Of Hearts. I don't know why it's so hard to believe Hepburn was a sexual creature - or that she liked men, for that matter. Of course she could have been bisexual but nobody seems to be suggesting that. I don't know why DL is so unable to accept bisexuality.

Tracy had affairs with a lot of women and he was was married. He was sexual and he had sex with women. Why would he have a relationship for years with Hepburn that was platonic? What would he get out of that? (And no, she wasn't a beard, he had a wife.) People really have to ignore a lot of facts to draw the conclusions they draw.

[quote]I remember reading somewhere that

You call that a fact, r533?

She had a 3 year affair with Leland Hayward. That's a fact.

Have you read Mann's book, r535?

R533 Was Scotty Bowers lying when he said they were both gay and not in a real relationship?

They *were* in a relationship, r537, a very real relationship. But it wasn't the romantic balderdash of the myth that was built upon it. I think they enjoyed each other's company. I don't think sex complicated it. Kate had issues over her brother's suicide and I think she liked the idea of rescuing Spencer or at least being there for him as he drank himself to death. In their comedies, the chemistry is in how comfortable they are with each other. That was real. Read Mann's book, he chronicles the amount of time they spent together through the decades and it really doesn't add up to all that much time. I think they had a wonderful bond that to me is as special as if they'd been fucking like bunnies.

Upon Hepburn’s death a NYT piece lauding how noble she was throughout her relationship with Tracey. One husband wrote in asking how “noble” he’d be deemed for carrying on a decades long extramarital affair.

SHUT UP OP, YOU OLD POOP!

They called her Kathy, r540.

Katherine invariably came across like she had something firmly lodged up her ass.

R534 I read it ina biography of KH. Don't remember which one. Why would Fairbanks lie about it? Do you think Hepburn paid him to t ell the story so people would think she was straight?

She was in love with John Ford. She was in love with Leland Hayward, and Howard Hughes. She was in love with Tracy. She couldn't have been "just friends" with all these men. You people saying she was in a platonic relationship with Tracy sound exactly like people back in the 60s before their relationship was revealed. "They're just very good friends." Wake up.

Posters are obsessed with calling her an old dyke. No sense of nuance.

Also if Hepburn and Tracy were merely friends, why did they keep their relationship a secret from Tracy's wife? We've all heard the story about when Louise met Kate coming out of his hospital room and said to her "I thought you were only a rumor." If there was nothing to hide, why hide? Why try to keep their relationship secret? Why live together?

[quote]R545 If there was nothing to hide, why hide? Why try to keep their relationship secret? Why live together?

She [italic]procured[/italic] for him.

Did you read Mann's book, r545?

R547 I did read it. Do you consider Mann's book the Bible?

I liked Scott Berg's book better.

Tracy also had an affair with Ingrid Bergman that was pretty well known.

I think the Bible is the Bible, r548. Did you disagree with Mann's computation of how much time they actually spent together through the years?

R551 I guess. I didn't read it yesterday. He had an axe to grind, the book was obviously written to prove something. Did you read this book? A much better book.

Some people aren't aware Louise Tracy was also an actress. She worked with Tracy in on the stage, in stock. She was supposedly excellent. She gave it up after they were married and she started devoting all her time to their son, John, who was born profoundly deaf, and founding a clinic in his name.

(Actually I think I'm wrong, maybe we wasn't born deaf but became deaf before he was one year old.)

[quote]the chemistry between her and Tracy was palpable

I don't know about their relationship behind the cameras, but I was never a big fan of their on-screen pairing. They starred in some good movies together, but Tracy was such a dull and basic actor. Imagine how much better Adam's Rib and Desk Set would be with Cary Grant, whom Kate had an actual good chemistry with. Damn, even Jimmy Stewart would do a better job than Tracy, which always seemed to only tolerate, not desire, her.

R555 No.

R556 Yes.

I cannot stand her. Ugly, shrill and hammy.

R556 Tracy was hilarious in Adam's Rib. Thankk God it didn't have Cary Grant or Jimmy Stewart mugging.

I often wonder if she'd have fair amount of chemistry with Clark Gable, the King of Golden Age Hollywood, in a screwball comedy. It would've been amazing.

Gable would have found Hepburn emasculating.

Maybe if they played co-owners of a munitions factory it could have worked.

Was there ever a woman as unsexy as Katharine? She was the opposite of sex.

Yet she was the screen goddess that outlasted them all.

[quote]Yet she was the screen goddess that outlasted them all.

Only in living years. No one remembers her.

Oh, please.

R545 R543 But why would Scotty Bowers lie about them being gay and bearding for each other? People say he wasn't a liar and had nothing to gain by making stuff up

Scotty Bowers was an old crazy bottom whore. All bottoms lie.

When Katherine gave birth to Audrey - she was only 22 years old and she had no career in movies, but she was onstage and knew where she was going. So she went to France and gave baby Audrey up to a private agency. Nothing too expensive or elaborate. Anonymity was key. Little did she know what fates would greet her child during childhood and the war years. Poor Audrey had no motherly love from her birth mother or her adopted mother. She was well raised, but forced to eat tuplips and grass during her time in the concentration camps. Audrey later said that she didn't have an eating disorder but that she was hungry for other things. A mother's love? Tragic.

One only needs to look at them to know they that Katherine and Audrey Hepburn are mother and daughter. Kate never thought of what she had done - she didn't even know who the father was - but he was surely tall and aristocratic. Perhaps with brown eyes. It never occured to her that Audrey was her child.

Katherine Hepburn had another daughter that she also hid from her public life. But she did not deny this girl her love and wealth. Because she was the child borne from the love of her life, Spencer Tracy. That girl is Cynthia McFadden. She used to do TV news. Kathy and Cyndy were never far apart. Not after Spence died.

Poor Audrey suffered the most. She was not emotionally strong, she grew up in trauma. Still she has her momma Kathy Hepburn to thank for a tiny, tiny waste and long neck and beautiful carriage.

Scotty Bowers is never mentioned anywhere but Datalounge.

These people were not gay. They had personal dignity and meaningful lives.

R567, and here I thought they were sisters, separated during the second world war and torn between the two sides, the father a Nazi and the mother, a Jewish librarian, who dropped Kate off with the American doctor for a life she could never give her daughter while on the run. Audrey stayed behind briefly before her father was killed and she was taken in for adoption by a family associated with allied forces.

Of course they kept this all a secret from Hollywood and could only reunite during clandestine meetings set up with help from mossad.

She's asexual, but needed 150 whores? Kate could get any man or woman that she wanted, and most likely did.

I jadore Adam's Rib. Comedy gold and high brow romantic comedy.

No one remembers Katharine is a joke. Forget this thread, but any person interested in film knows who she is.

My 19 year old nephew loved Philadelphia Story, and he is straight. We watched it together.

R562 Many straight men are attracted to tomboys. She certainly had an appeal.

She's gorgeous in the Philadelphia story. Cary Grant was goodlooking but not sexy either. It's a great movie.

R572 yes what’s with that? They like the muscled out gym girls too it’s weird. You would think they would like them womanly and feminine.

R574 Same reason some people are attracted to femboys. I guess they're captivated by the inversion of genre expectations.

[quote]R569 Kate could get any man or woman that she wanted, and most likely did.

Yeah. She was a real red hot mama.

LOVED her in Desk Set. Breezy comedy about computers. Ironically she worked with one of Bette's best pals, Joan Blondell, as her on screen best buddy.

When were Katharine or Bette sold as sex symbols? Never. They were sold as *actresses*

[Quote]Only in living years. No one remembers her.

then how do you account for this thread filling up so quickly?

Hepburn wasn't a sex symbol but she was considered a beauty, albeit an atypical beauty. Bette was never a beauty. Stanwyck wasn't considered a beauty either but she had sex appeal. And of course Joan was considered the most beautiful woman in the 1930s. Even Garbo thought Joan's face was stunning.

[quote]Bette was never a beauty

As she was also the first person to admit

[quote]Stanwyck wasn't considered a beauty either

Capra termed her "a stern beauty"

Garbo, Dietrich and Crawford were "the Faces"

From the very late 40's onwards Joan started looking very manish.

The bitterness was eroding outwards.

Kate didn't deign to accept a single one of her four Oscars.

However, after she won for the last time, she said to Jane Fonda, "Well, you'll never catch me now..." at first Fonda didn't know what she was taking about. "The Academy Award... I have four now."

So, it appears she cared more about things like that than she ever let on. She's right, though. I don't think anyone else will ever get 4 lead actress (or actor, for that matter) Oscars.

Some of us would settle for one.

How old are some of you? Hasn't she been dead for like 30 years?

We're older than dirt, r586, now skedaddle.

In short, she was a cunt.

Kate the Great was an Alpha Female, without a doubt. There's no way she and Bette would've worked well together on a film, it would've been the clash of the titans. Look at how she commanded Dick Cavett and his crew before the interview. I think she was a little nervous as it was her very first television interview, and a lot of this behavior was her way of masking her insecurities. But you can tell she was a woman who came from privilege and was accustomed to exerting her authority and getting her way.

Compare with Bette...

After a somewhat ridiculous start, this thread has been a pleasant surprise. I know you broads have probably hashed all this stuff out before but keep it coming! It beats Heartstopper, that's for sure.

I rewatch the Hepburn and Davis interviews with Cavett regularly on youtube annually or a little less often). I love them! The George Harrison one is also very good.

Dick Cavett comes across as a real simp as the tapes age.

What was their mom like? Did she have a favorite?

Katherine never got over that as The Baby, Audrey got most of the attention.

Audrey was even billed as Baby Hepburn in her first few stage appearances.

What about the other Hepburn sisters? Why didn't they become famous?

Do we need a part two? R589/r560 thanks for those.

Katharine wrote a vicious tell-all memoir called "Bringing Up Baby Audrey: An Elder Sister's Burden Revealed." It will be published 50 years after her death.

We definitely need a part two. We never got to all of the other Hepburn sisters. Does anyone remember all of their names? They were a huge family, at least 8 sisters and several brothers too. The first Mrs. Hepburn (Katherine's mom) died in childbirth with Cassie Hepburn. Or was it Shelley Hepburn? Anyway their father soon remarried and it was the second Mrs. Hepburn who had Audrey along with the Hepburn triplets and the 2 youngest brothers.

I remember their was an older sister, Magda Hepburn, and Audrey had a lookalike sister Judy Hepburn who got all of her rejected roles. And then there were the little twins, Ashley and Mary-Kate Hepburn. And Lorna Hepburn, who had some talent but was always in the shadow of her more famous sister(s).