Katharine Hepburn

by Anne Edwards

  None of her emotional or intellectual attempts to get Mourning Becomes Electra produced succeeded. Mayer simply and flatly refused to discuss the project further with her. Pandro Berman, who had once sworn he would never do another film with her, now came to Kate with an adaptation of Pearl Buck’s Dragon Seed. The role of the idealistic yet realistic Chinese girl, Jade, appealed to Kate, perhaps because of the challenge of portraying a woman of another culture, but also because the theme was that of the Chinese peasant’s long struggle against Japanese aggression. Mayer had approved such a political film for two reasons: one, it showed America’s enemy, Japan, as evil; and two, Metro had made a commercially successful film of another Pearl Buck novel, The Good Earth.

  Starring in a three-million-dollar production placed an extra responsibility on Kate.* Gone With the Wind had cost less to make and was a half hour longer. Filmed largely on location in the San Fernando Valley, where an entire Chinese peasant village had been constructed on a 120-acre tract of land, Dragon Seed began under the direction of Jack Conway,† who collapsed halfway through the production and was replaced by Harold S. Bucquet.‡ The pressures mounted. Location was a thirty-six-mile drive and, because of her heavy makeup, Kate had to be on the set by six A.M. Her renewed friendship with Berman and, more important, with his assistant and her longtime friend, Jane Loring, got her through. Tracy was making a very difficult film, The Seventh Cross,§ which Berman was also producing. Struggling to keep off the booze, he drank steaming cups of coffee all day. At night he suffered terrible insomnia (an affliction that he fought for years), and Kate tried as well as she could to help him ward off the tension this created.

  Signe Hasso,* Tracy’s leading lady in The Seventh Cross, noted that on the set “he was intense and withdrawn, and had little time for chit-chat. During a scene he never went in for frivolous ad-libbing as many actors do. We used to tease him about his complete absorption [in his role]. He only smiled, pretended to be annoyed, but never bothered to answer back.”

  Having never previously worked with Tracy, Miss Hasso was not to know that he could ad-lib as well, if not better, than any of his fellow actors, but was reacting to the stress of drying out while performing a heavy and responsible task.

  Whatever sharp criticism may have been written about Kate’s performance of Jade in Dragon Seed—the snide remarks about her “Peck and Peckish pajamas” and her “twangy New England Oriental accent”—she does manage to make Jade “a rather wondrous character” and because of it Dragon Seed becomes a compelling film. Not to be dismissed were the two splendid performances of Walter Huston† and Aline MacMahon‡ as Jade’s elderly peasant parents. Mayer had been right. The exotic background, the strength of Pearl Buck’s popularity and the view of the Japanese as the enemy made Dragon Seed successful at the box office, although far less so than The Good Earth, and it was not as well received as many less expensive films.

  Clearly, what audiences wanted to see was Tracy and Hepburn reunited in a film that paired them in a romantic comedy like Woman of the Year. Keeper of the Flame had served only to make the public hungry for the team in a lighter, bantering mood. Kate wanted that as well and she finally convinced Mayer to buy Without Love as a vehicle for them. Donald Ogden Stewart adapted the play. Onstage, Kate had been the center spectacle, stunning in her Valentina costumes and floating about as she spoke Barry’s witty lines. Her brilliance had covered Nugent’s weakness and had been the one saving grace of a shallow play. With Tracy’s considerable presence, the story now took on more substance. Kate’s role was no longer a star turn. The personality she created by subduing her performance to Tracy’s was less exciting than the original, but she contributed greatly to solidifying Tracy and Hepburn as a team.

  An actor’s ego no longer controlled Kate. Making a good film and doing it with Tracy did. Always interested in the filming process, she now wanted to become an expert on all facets of production. She arrived early on the set, stayed late and had her nose everywhere, sniffing her disapproval, scenting fresh ground. The set director, Ed Willis, commented, “People always said to me, ‘She’s trying to do everything.’ And my reply was, ‘The thing I’m afraid of and you should be afraid of, is that she can do everything.’ Producer, director, cameraman! That’s what she was! Her idea of everything was always better than you could ever have envisioned.”

  A caption could have been written for the weeks during which Without Love were shot: “Kate, happy at last!” She had her work, she had her man, and she had her way. Tracy was off the booze—her hope was that he had won the battle. In the end, it turned out to be only a one-round victory.

  Footnotes

  * Ruth Gordon Kanin (1896– ), born Ruth Jones, known as Ruth Gordon on stage and in film. She portrayed Mary Todd Lincoln in Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940) and won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for Rosemary’s Baby (1968). She also wrote several screenplays alone and with her husband, Garson Kanin; two—Adam’s Rib (1949) and Pat and Mike (1952)—starred Katharine Hepburn, who was to become her close friend. Their lives had crossed years before. Jed Harris was the father of Gordon’s only son.

  * Chester Erskine (1905– ) was originally from the theater. He arrived in Hollywood in 1932 and made several routine films. He adapted, directed and produced The Egg and I (1947).

  † James Bacon, for eighteen years the Associated Press’s correspondent in Hollywood.

  ‡ Clark Gable played the role of Killer Mears in the West Coast production of The Last Mile in 1930. The production was partially financed by his then future second wife, Rhea Langham. Gable had had five wives: Josephine Dillon, Rhea Langham, Carole Lombard, Lady Sylvia Ashley and Kay Williams Spreckels.

  § Carole Lombard (1908–1942), glamorous and top-ranking comedy star of the 1930s.

  * Gable rose in rank from lieutenant to major and received the Distinguished Flying Cross and Air Medal for numerous bombing missions over Germany.

  † Elliott Nugent (1900–1980), director, actor, playwright, screenwriter. His greatest success was as a director of comedy and light romantic plays.

  * Tortilla Flat, from the novel by John Steinbeck, was filmed in March and April and released in late May, 1942. It starred Tracy, Hedy Lamarr (1914– ) and John Garfield (1913–1952) and was directed by Victor Fleming (1883–1949).

  * Hepburn was, perhaps, referring to one of her backyard theater productions for which admission was charged. There is no other record of her appearing in any production, however minor, in Hartford in her youth.

  * Twenty years later, writer and critic Gavin Lambert wrote, “The film is . . . full of chilling contemporary echoes. The attack on hero worship really strikes home. . . . The glimpses of the dead man’s effects on youth look frighteningly real—the funeral with all those sullen Boy Scouts in attendance, the secretary mouthing official phrases about a great patriot . . . the suggestions of a right wing in the making . . . and Katharine Hepburn as the great man’s widow has definite Jacqueline Kennedy overtones.”

  * The British reacted in much the same manner. English films were far more popular there during World War II than American films were.

  * Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier were married on August 31, 1940, at one minute past midnight in Santa Barbara, California, by Municipal Judge Fred Harsh in the living room of Mr. and Mrs. Alvin Weingand, friends of Olivier’s. The Weingands, Garson Kanin and Hepburn were the only people present.

  * A Guy Named Joe starred Tracy, Irene Dunne and Van Johnson and was released on December 24, 1943.

  † Van Johnson (1916– ) was catapulted to stardom when he appeared in 1942 for the first time in a bit in a Metro programmer titled Too Many Girls. Because of a physical disability Johnson was draft-exempt, and in the absence of established stars who were in the services he was in great demand. In 1942–43, he co-starred in no less than eight major Metro films. He appeared with Tracy and Hepburn in State of the Union (1948) and with Tracy in Plymouth Adventure (1952).

  * Hepburn’s pr
evious films had never been budgeted at more than one million dollars, a high cost for a film at that time.

  † Jack Conway (1887–1952), a film craftsman. Among his many fine films (more than one hundred), Arsène Lupin (1932), A Tale of Two Cities (1935), Boom Town (1940) and Honky Tonk (1941) stand out.

  ‡ Harold S. Bucquet (1891–1946), previously a director of modest films, was responsible for most of the Dr. Kildare pictures. Dragon Seed was his first major assignment. He directed Tracy and Hepburn in their next film, Without Love.

  § The Seventh Cross was directed by Fred Zinnemann and based on Anna Sagher’s novel, which was adapted by Helen Deutsch. Tracy plays a German liberal who escapes from a concentration camp. His six compatriots are killed, and he goes on to fight for freedom.

  * Signe Hasso (1915– ), Swedish actress very popular in the 1940s.

  † Walter Huston (1884–1950). Famous on stage and screen, Huston starred on Broadway in O’Neill’s Desire Under the Elms (1924), Dodsworth (1934) (a role he later repeated on screen) and Knickerbocker Holiday (1938), in which he made famous the song “September Song.” He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor (1948) for his role as the old prospector in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Director John Huston is his son.

  ‡ Aline MacMahon (1899– ) had been one of the stars Hepburn played with at the Berkshire Playhouse in 1931 and had been a guest star in Stage Door Canteen. She was nominated by the Academy for Best Supporting Actress in 1944 for her role in Dragon Seed, but did not win. She never appeared with Hepburn again.

  CHAPTER

  17

  Unlike the majority of top stars, Kate was not surrounded by a claque of sycophants, nor had she ever been. Her longtime friendships with Laura and Luddy were of a different ilk. They remained caring family, and their love for Kate and hers for them was tested and had proved to be strong enough to withstand time and separation. With Tracy’s importance in her life, Laura and Luddy’s influence faded into the background, but that is not to say that their positions had been completely usurped. For one thing, Kate was a person of fierce loyalty. And for another, each had been the recipient of deep affection from Kate and each had proven dedication to her over and over again. For now, both of them had made adjustments in their own lives that compensated for Kate’s dwindling need for their companionship.

  In September, 1942, when Kate had been on tour with the Barry play Without Love, Luddy had filed suit for divorce against Kate in Hartford under the name of Ogden Ludlow. Luddy claimed desertion and told the court that he doubted the legality of the decree Kate had received in Mexico in 1934. The case appeared on the docket simply as Ogden Ludlow v. Katharine H. Ludlow. Not until the hearing was almost over did the judge realize the identity of the defendant. Kate was not present, but Dr. Hepburn testified in a successful effort to establish Connecticut as Kate’s legal residence.

  One week later, on September 26, Luddy married a divorced Boston socialite, Elizabeth Albers, who helped to fill his life. Laura, of course, had her own coterie of friends and her family estate in New Jersey. When Kate was on the West Coast, she often used Kate’s house in New York. Laura was always to represent a continuum in Kate’s life. No matter what vicissitudes, changes or close deaths Kate might suffer, Laura, who never married, was there, a solid support, a constant friend. Kate knew this, cherished their friendship and returned it in kind.

  With the end of the war with Japan on August 14, 1945, Hollywood was back to the flurry of prewar production; among many other returning servicemen, George Cukor came home. Cukor’s house remained one of the few places outside her own residence where Kate would go for a social gathering. She claimed restaurants made her faint; people stared at her and she became selfconscious about everything—her table manners, her chewing, her voice. She tried dining out on five or six occasions to please various associates, each time with the same cold-sweat result, and then never attempted to do so again.

  Ruth Gordon (Kanin) and Kate got on very well. Both of them had strong New England roots, had been stage performers first, and had known many of the same people earlier in their lives. The Kanins were as splendid a team as Kate and Tracy—both witty, quick and eclectic in their interests—and they seemed to “spark off each other.” Dining with them one night, photographer-designer Cecil Beaton* noted that in conversation the Kanins knew how to “dispense with all unnecessary impediments, driving right to the point, sticking to it, and brooking no interruptions.” Ruth was writing as well as acting, Garson writing and producing. Like Kate, they were workaholics. Also, although not teetotalers, when working they did not allow themselves a single drink because they felt it claimed a dividend of energy the next day. With Tracy’s drinking problem, they were a boon to have around.

  Beaton found them “like a couple of athletes; their training is rigorous. . . . It is typical of [Ruth] and her husband that they both have much work in hand while there is much already ready for production. Garson with a couple of film scripts and a play, Ruth with three plays.”†

  The Kanins were Kate and Tracy’s closest companions. They were now neighbors as well, having bought a house next door to Kate in Turtle Bay. Certainly not sycophantic, the Kanins were enjoying huge success, both individually and together. The friendship (on their part at least) was still curious. They themselves liked to live like royalty, but they accepted a kind of subjects’ place where Kate was concerned. Also very much unlike Kate, they led an extremely active social life. Beaton wrote that “their extravagances . . . are such that if both of them have a successful play running for the next six years, they will still be behind with their taxes. . . . They see films . . . in a private viewing room . . . have their own chauffeur . . . take their meals at the most expensive restaurants. Ruth buys whole hog from Mainbocher.* . . . . Garson showers her with presents so that she resembles a little Burmese idol studded with bulbous jewelry. They consider money is of no use unless spent.”

  Late in the spring of 1945, Kate and Tracy went to New York. Kate loved to travel, Tracy loathed it, but he did it to please her and so that he could meet her family. The experience was not exactly what he had expected. “The Hepburns all love to talk,” he once said. “Even when they look like they’re listening, they’re really only sitting there thinking what they’re going to say next.” Kate was present as he told this story to director Frank Capra: “First time I got invited to the Hepburn home in New England [Fenwick]—home, hell! a palace! On half an island and facing a private fenced-off beach a mile long. Well, you know Madame Do-Gooder, here. She’ll donate to the Committee for the Protection of Fireplugs. She’ll parade for the civil rights of the three-toed sloth. And you know what? Her family are all bigger fruitcakes than she is. You know—ultra-liberal New England aristocrats that work their ass off for the poor, poor folk, but never see one. Take [Kate’s] father. A big doctor. They won’t let charity letters go through New England’s mails unless his name’s on the letterheads. And her mother helps Margaret Sanger with young girls that got knocked up—”

  “Mother helps with birth control—” Kate broke in.

  “Okay, mother helps young girls from getting knocked up. And all the [five] grown Hepburn kids’ve got pet social rackets of their own. What a clan! Well, at dinner my head’s this big. Can you imagine listening to [seven] Hepburns all talking at once about the Negroes, the slums, the Puerto Ricans, abortions, the homeless, the hungry? So I get up and say, ‘If you don’t mind I’ll step outside and lift the lamp beside the golden door.’ So I go out on the porch for some peace and to watch the sunset.

  “The beach was empty. Had to be empty with those barbed wire fences on each side. And I see a guy, with a fishing rod, a little guy, crawling through the barbed wire about half a mile away, so far away he was a speck. ‘Hey,’ I yelled to them inside, ‘better put on another plate. Here comes a wretched one yearning to breathe free!’

  “Old man Hepburn came out running with fire in his eye. ‘Where is he?’ I pointed to the fen
ce. Dr. Hepburn took down a megaphone off the porch wall and ran out on the beach yelling ‘This is private property! You are trespassing! Get off this beach immediately or I will fill your tail with buckshot! Now git!’

  “The poor old fisherman dove through that barbed wire and gits for his life up the beach trailing barbed wire from his legs. Papa Hepburn hangs up the megaphone and says to me, ‘Getting so a man can’t enjoy any privacy anymore At least twice a week some nervy interloper tries crawling through that fence!’ And he goes right inside and joins the hot family discussion about the rights of the poor.”

  Tracy had been off alcohol for many months and was looking better and complaining less than usual (he had a natural leaning toward hypochondria). Kate was ecstatically happy. April 1 he received a letter from President Roosevelt asking him to tour army, navy, marine and air-force bases overseas to help keep up the morale of the men still on duty. Kate persuaded him to accept. In Washington, D.C., while he was being briefed, the President extended an invitation for him to call at the White House.

  After an hour’s visit, Roosevelt told Tracy that he wanted him to deliver a letter in Europe off the record for him. Tracy agreed. On April 12, President Roosevelt died, Tracy’s tour was canceled and he never found out whom he was to deliver a message to, a blank that was always to frustrate him.

  Neither Kate nor Tracy had scheduled a film for the rest of the year, and they were definitely at odds about what to do. Finally, Garson approached Tracy with the idea of playing the lead in a Robert E. Sherwood play, The Rugged Path, that he was to direct. Tracy admired Sherwood’s work and liked the role but was not convinced that after a lapse of fifteen years he should return to the stage. Kanin says that “Most of all there hung over him the fear of losing so much as a single round in his continuing battle against alcohol. A few days lost in the production of a film was no great matter. The discipline of the theatre was far more stringent.”