Katharine Hepburn

by Anne Edwards

“She may have gone to Hartford to visit her family. Or she and Hayward might have gone to be married. One thing only is certain. She is gone.”

  In fact, she had returned to West Hartford with Leland so that he could meet her family. Whatever his expectations, the Hepburns managed to overwhelm him. He flew back to Hollywood, leaving Kate behind.

  The press now speculated that they were married, and neither of them bothered to deny the rumors despite the fact that Leland was photographed several times in the company of beautiful women. Within a few weeks Kate and Laura were back in California and Kate was set to begin a new film, Break of Hearts, originally entitled The Music Man and intended as a vehicle for Kate and John Barrymore.

  From the start, nothing went right with Break of Hearts. Kate and Barrymore’s first replacement, the continental star Francis Lederer,* played poorly together. Charles Boyer then stepped in and two weeks of work had to be reshot. The director, Philip Moeller,† a theater director of fine reputation, could not adapt his talent to the screen and the film grew more static with each scene. Still, nothing could have overcome this inept love story of an eminent musical conductor (Boyer) who falls in love with an unknown composer (Hepburn). He becomes an alcoholic and she gives up a promising career of her own to help him out of his alcoholic stupor.

  It should have broken the filmgoers’ hearts, but “labored and palpably fabricated writing” kept any emotion at all from occurring. The Time critic warned, “Miss Hepburn makes it clear that unless her employers see fit to return her to roles in keeping with her mannerisms (Little Women), these will presently annoy cinema addicts into forgetting that she is really an actress of great promise and considerable style.”

  Break of Hearts failed at the box office almost as badly as The Little Minister had, and its release endangered Kate’s reputation. Something had to be done quickly to repair the damage. R.K.O. had a $200,000 commitment to her for four more films, and unless her next appearance was a box-office success, they stood to lose considerable money. Finally, Pandro Berman, who had produced Morning Glory, came up with a script, adapted by Jane Murfin (who had also worked on The Little Minister and Spitfire), of Booth Tarkington’s Alice Adams.

  Kate’s new contract had given her final choice of director and she vowed not to repeat the kind of costly error of judgment she had made with Break of Hearts, where Philip Moeller’s association with the Theatre Guild had influenced her decision. Had George Cukor not been engaged in the filming of David Copperfield, Kate would have asked for him. She did, however, turn to him for advice on the two directors R.K.O. consldered right for the assignment, William Wyler* and George Stevens,† neither of whom had made a large name for himself yet. Cukor chose Wyler, who, of the two, had had more experience. Although his early films had been uninspired western potboilers, two of Wyler’s more recent efforts, A House Divided and Counsellor at Law, did exhibit a meticulous craftsmanship. George Stevens had served his apprenticeship with Laurel and Hardy two-reelers and had not yet made a film of any scope.

  Kate discussed Cukor’s preference with Pandro Berman, who disagreed. Alice Adams’s world was workaday, her ambitions pretentious, her life a fiction. Alice Adams required a director who could re-create the middle-class society of small-town America and who could apply bits of humor to the overall pathos of Alice’s situation. William Wyler’s Alsatian background and his Swiss­German education seemed ill suited to such a task. Wyler, in fact, possessed very little humor. Kate had another reason for rejecting Wyler: his marriage to Margaret Sullavan. Pandro Berman states that on meeting George Stevens Kate was terribly attracted to him. Yet the first day on the set, she was certain she had made a mistake in not going with Wyler.

  A disagreement arose between her and Stevens as to the treatment of the opening shot. Stevens refused to back down, and Kate returned to her dressing room in a huff. She reappeared on the set hours later, and the disagreement began anew. In all, only thirty seconds of film were shot the first day. For three weeks, the tension between them remained and they were still calling each other “Mr. Stevens” and “Miss Hepburn.” Nonetheless, Kate sensed that her performance was the better for Stevens’s stubborn resistance.

  The scene to be shot on the twenty-first day of shooting called for Alice (who had just lost her first real sweetheart) to enter her bedroom, throw herself on the bed and burst into tears. Kate had rehearsed the scene numerous times when Stevens decided a more moving effect would be for Alice to enter, slowly walk to the window, look beyond, and then cry.*

  Kate refused to play the scene other than the way she had rehearsed it and she stood firm for half a day. Stevens also remained intractable.

  “It’s ridiculous!” Kate finally erupted. “There’s a limit to stupidity. I’ve put up with all of it I can. You dumb bastard, I’m going to cry on the bed!”

  Stevens shouted back that he would return to his two-reelers before he’d give in to her.

  “A quitter!” Kate mocked. “If I ever had any respect for you, it’s gone now! You don’t get your way, so you quit! You’re yellow!“

  Stevens answered, in a cold, quiet voice, “Miss Hepburn, just walk to the window, please, and stand there awhile. You needn’t weep. I’ll dub someone in, in a long shot and we can fake the sound track.”

  For a moment everyone on the set held their breath as their eyes were riveted on star and director. Then Kate began to walk toward the scene. Stevens gave the signal for the cameras to turn. Kate entered, hesitated, went to the window, looked out beyond. The lines in her face quivered, broke and then she wept. Finally, when the action ended, she turned toward her director. “How was that George?” she asked as she wiped the tears from her face.

  Alice Adams was extremely well received and Kate won a second Academy Award nomination for her portrayal. But for Kate, Alice Adams was a period of personal crisis. Her romance with Leland Hayward contained great highs and lows. She still demanded a veil of secrecy. The possibility that they might marry as indicated in her statement to the Selznicks appeared to have diminished. Kate wanted him on her terms. But Leland Hayward could not be converted into becoming a replacement for Luddy.

  To add to her personal conflicts, Laura (whom fan magazines now bannered as “The Power Behind Katharine Hepburn”), after three close years with Kate, had decided to return to the East and “to stop living Kate’s life for her.” She later commented, “ . . . it became clear to me that my presence in Hollywood was increasingly inessential to myself, to Kate, and to pictures. I had no interest in going into the industry, Kate was firmly established as a huge star and was no longer dependent on me, and I was tired of the rather meaningless, sterile life of Southern California.

  “ . . . I came from a totally different social milieu from either Hollywood or Kate. Our family was in railroads and the travel business [American Express], our friends were East Coast old money people, and I never even approved of Kate’s bohemian ways. I adored her and still do, but in 1935 it had become obvious that I did not belong at the center of her life.”

  Laura’s place as confidante and companion in Kate’s life had been usurped by another young woman, named Jane Loring. Loring and Kate had met on Break of Hearts when the attractive film technician was hired as an assistant film editor to William Hamilton. Three months later, she had progressed to editor on Alice Adams. Loring, a sensitive film cutter with an understanding of Kate’s best cinematic qualities, could talk a language that was foreign to Laura. Loring edited Kate’s next three films, during which time she became her close adviser.

  At Christmas, 1934, Leland Hayward had suddenly taken ill. Cancer of the prostate was suspected and Kate insisted they fly to West Hartford so that Dr. Hepburn could perform the operation required. In attempting to avoid newsmen at Idlewild Airport, Kate came within inches of being struck by a propeller in motion, a near accident that made headlines (HEPBURN DARES DEATH TO ELUDE THE PRESS). Reporters followed the couple to Hartford, where Hayward checked immediately into Hartford Hospi
tal. The press sat vigil in the hospital lobby. The story was the stuff that the popular papers doted upon: a film star’s father operating on the man who the press was certain must be his son-in-law (or, at the very least, his future son-in-law). For the first few days, Kate managed to avoid photographers by entering the hospital through the basement. Finally, they secreted themselves behind the garage of the Hepburn house. Kate and Mrs. Hepburn drove in, unsuspecting. Kate stepped out of the garage first. Flashbulbs exploded in her face. “I was in a blind, towering rage,” she says of her succeeding actions. Bolting toward the nearest photographer, she leaped up, grabbed the camera and tearing it from the man’s hand tossed it hard to the ground. Then she turned and ran into the house where she was met by her sister Peggy.

  “Where’s a shotgun?” she shouted. “Get it! Get it!”

  Peggy tried to calm her sister, while Mrs. Hepburn beat off the photographers outside with a wire basket she had found in the garage. She put them to flight, but not before they had taken one shot of her “swinging the basket like a mace.”

  The photograph was featured in out-of-town newspapers but never printed locally. Dr. Hepburn was asked if this surprised him.

  “Not at all,” he replied grimly. “I’ve operated on half the news­papermen in Hartford already, and I expect to operate on the other half.”

  Leland Hayward’s operation was a success and, after a brief recuperation at the Hepburns’ home, he returned to the Coast. Kate followed, but she now became more Garboesque than ever about her marital status. When confronted by a friend who suggested that Kate’s impulsive action toward the photographer and her quarrel with the press might have been improvident, costing her a great deal in good relations, Kate replied, “What does it matter how much that quarrel cost me? I think this invasion of people’s private lives is rotten and wrong, and I’ve fought it in protest. I protest because I feel that way. I can live better with myself for doing it, and that’s the most important thing in the world to me.”

  Footnotes

  * The Time critic wrote, “. . . superb acting by Katharine Hepburn. An actress of so much vitality that she can wear balloon skirts and address her mother as ‘Marmee’ without suggesting quaintness, she makes Jo March one of the most memorable heroines of the year . . . .”

  * Robert Young (1907– ) co-starred in more than one hundred films, cast first as an amiable, reliable leading man, then charming husband and finally benevolent father. His popularity reached its apex in television, however, when he co-starred in the mid-fifties in Father Knows Best and a decade later in Marcus Welby, MD. He never worked with Hepburn again.

  † Pride and Prejudice had been adapted for the stage by Helen Jerome, who also adapted the production of Jane Eyre that Hepburn was to tour with in 1936–37.

  * The role was played on Broadway in the fall of 1934 by Tallulah Bankhead, and in films by Bette Davis in 1939.

  * Stanley Ridges (1892–1951) played many pivotal roles in such major films as Winterset, Yellow Jack, If I Were King, Each Dawn I Die, The Sea Wolf, Sergeant York and To Be or Not to Be.

  † Hepburn’s current contract was at R.K.O. but Garbo was signed to Metro.

  * Eugene O’Neill wrote Theresa Helburn, “About Mourning Becomes Electra, I am sure Hepburn would be splendid as Lavinia. The rest I’m afraid would be a dreadful hash of attempted condensation and idiotic censorship . . . . ” Rosalind Russell played Lavinia in the 1947 film adaptation of Mourning Becomes Electra.

  * In 1921, Vitagraph released The Little Minister starring Alice Calhoun and Jimmy Morrison, and Paramount released a more elaborate production starring Betty Compson and George Hackathorne the same year.

  † Maude Adams (1872–1953) began acting at an early age. The Little Minister was her first starring role. Other Barrie plays in which she starred were Quality Street (1901), Peter Pan (1905) (the role for which she is most loved), and What Every Woman Knows (1908). Hepburn also repeated Adams’s role in the film version of Quality Street 1937).

  ‡ The script of The Little Minister was as fusty as its subject. A conservative new minister (well played by John Beal) is ostracized by his parish of the Auld Licht Kirk in 1840 when he falls in love with a gypsy wench who is the spokeswoman for the poor weavers of the county. Just when he is about to be expelled from his pulpit because he has been seen walking with the gypsy girl, it becomes known that she is in reality Lady Babbie, ward of the richest man in the county, and all is forgiven.

  * In 1985, the average period of shooting was eight to twelve weeks.

  * Francis Lederer (1906– ), born in Prague, was a matinee idol in Germany. In 1934, he came to Hollywood and starred in three films after making a sensational American stage debut in Autumn Crocus in 1932. His two most popular American films were Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939) and The Man I Married (1940).

  † Philip Moeller (1880–1958) had directed several plays for the Theatre Guild.

  * William Wyler (1902–1983) in 1934 had not yet reached the point in his career where he was critically acclaimed. Dodsworth (1936) began his ascent as a top director. Dead End (1937), Jezebel (1938), Wuthering Heights (1939), The Letter (1940), The Little Foxes (1941), The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), Detective Story (1951), Roman Holiday (1953) and The Friendly Persuasion (1956) were among his best films.

  † George Stevens (1904–1975) directed surprisingly few films. He did Swing Time (1936) with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, Quality Street (1937) and Woman of the Year (1942), the latter two reuniting him with Hepburn. A Place in the Sun (1951), Shane (1953) and Giant (1956) were his most notable subsequent films.

  * Hepburn always used glycerine to cry, maintaining that the development of a mental attitude that would make her cry normally would also affect her ability to apply intelligence to the scene.

  CHAPTER

  11

  Kate sat feet up on the cocktail table, dressed in a scarlet sweater and white slacks as though specially costumed to match the white walled, red carpeted living room of the house in Turtle Bay. She smiled enchantingly and carefully balanced a cup of tea in her hand as she shook her shaggy bobbed hair back from her face. She had consented to a rare interview under extreme pressure from the studio, but with one proviso: Leland Hayward’s name was not to be mentioned. Filming had just ended on Sylvia Scarlett* and the front office knew Hepburn’s latest would need all the good press they could muster. Kate, realizing how bad the situation was, finally had promised she would cooperate.

  The interviewer (perhaps because he had attended a press showing of Sylvia Scarlett) also stayed clear of any reference to her new film.

  “What about your future plans?” he asked.

  “Not altogether set,” she replied. “I should like to do about two, maybe three pictures every year and appear in one play a year. That would be plenty of work.”

  “Who do you like especially as a motion picture director?”

  “George Cukor,” she came back in a flash. “A grand fellow, understanding, imaginative.”

  “And your favorite screen actress?”

  “Miss Garbo. Who can touch her?”

  “And your first lady of the stage?”

  “I adore Katharine Cornell . . . . Now, before you get around to it, I don’t mind confessing a few other tastes or whims or what have you. I am crazy about Siamese cats, English bull terriers and English history.* I am fond of golfing, horseback riding, skating, swimming and motoring. I’ll tackle my bacon and eggs with any longshoreman, for I have a perfectly unladylike appetite.”

  She leaned forward, slid her tea cup and saucer onto the table and snatched up a fudge brownie. “I adore these,” she said as she took a bite with tremendous relish.

  “What part would you like best to have a go at in a stage production?”

  Kate thought a moment.

  “Juliet; I’d love it and 1 believe, on my soul, I could do a nifty Juliet!”†

  “How do you feel about Hollywood?”

  “I like e
very damned thing about the place. Palms and brown hills and boulevards and geraniums six feet tall and flowers running riot everywhere and the grand roads and the golfing and the picture people and even the work, grinding as it is. I like it! Why in hell shouldn’t I?”

  From that point her voice took on an edge. So much for charming the press. Anyway, her general you-be-damned reaction to the world, that take-me-as-I-am-or-go-to-hell attitude that marked her more determined moments made the best copy for an interviewer. This particular interviewer noted that “she can swear like the troops in Flanders” and that “head up, chin stuck out, [she is] a hundred and ten pounds or so of cold steel nerve . . . a lady of many angles, with a good deal of useful ego in her cosmos; but intellectually honest if ever there was such a creature . . . .”

  That might not have been exactly the kind of “good” press R.K.O. had had in mind, but they were at least appreciative of her efforts. During this trip to New York, Kate sat through numerous such interrogations, answering the same questions over and over with considerable grace—for Kate. One thing was clear. Kate’s determination, her “intellectual honesty,” was in the process of replacing her early disdain and arrogance. She no longer threw obvious lies at the press, or mocked them. Kate had begun to mature.

  Part of this growth had been a new interest in the film roles she chose to play. George Cukor had wanted to do Sylvia Scarlett for a number of years and gave Kate the book to read believing her special garçonne quality made her perfect for the part. Kate agreed and she and Cukor finally (after much resistance) convinced Pandro Berman to produce the film.

  Sylvia Scarlett was a daring choice for Kate; an eccentric story of a girl who disguises herself as a boy to help her father who is a thief and a con man. In the 1930 film Morocco, Dietrich had dressed like a man; in 1931, Mary Pickford appeared in several sequences of Kiki dressed as a boy; and in Queen Christina, in 1933, Garbo had donned male attire as a disguise; and all three films had been unconditionally successful. But the approach to these impersonations had been more mocking or satirical than sexual. On the other hand, Sylvia Scarlett’s former fiancé (Brian Aherne) is more aroused by her as a young man than as a young woman, and another woman finds her so attractive that she plants a passionate kiss on her mouth, which does not shock Sylvia Scarlett.*