 |
|
|
|
|
Today
would have been the 74th birthday of Jacqueline Bouvier
Kennedy Onassis |
|
|
|
|
Fame
and the Famous As Well ... |
|
|
Last
week I read Scott Berg’s Kate Remembered (Putnam),
which was published within days of the star’s death (at
96) and now has more than a half million copies in print. Although
I was never in her thrall as stars go, my friend Peter
Rogers told me it was so good he’d stayed up all
night reading it. I always found Katharine Hepburn compelling
in an interview, the most memorable for me being the one with Dick
Cavett on his wonderful late night talk show back in
the early 70s, so I took his word for it and bought it.
At the time of the Cavett interview she was a woman
in her sixties with the peak of her career long past. However, she
still had the charisma and force of personality to continually draw
(favorable) attention to herself. As Berg explains thoroughly, she
also had the shrewdness (and great luck) to choose roles that would
continue to keep her in the white light of stardom.
Katharine
Hepburn is and was probably the only American movie
star ever to come from the upperclasses. I know there are others
well known who were to the manor born, but I’m talking Star.
It might be argued that she was not exactly upperclass, but it’s
a moot point because there is no other designation that defines
her personality more precisely. She had the cheekbones, the New
England/midAtlantic accent/patois, the hauteur and the sense of
entitlement that still defines that class of Americans (now much
much smaller than it used to be and not to be confused with upper income).
She also had the common touch, a quality which can be found lacking
in any class and a sterling one for an audience.
She was a perfect distillation of the 20th
century American Dream, female version. Scott
Berg’s book reveals all of this in a variety of
ways. It is quite personal – written as a memoir – in
which you learn a few details about the author as well
as the subject. Their relationship began about twenty
years ago when he first went to interview her for a story
for Esquire (which was never published, as it
happened). He also explains to us that he had always
wanted to meet her, that from early on, he had been fascinated
by her, had seen all her films, and had developed a biographer’s
interest in her.
So, for the award-winning biographer, it was literally finding a
Mother Lode. The two of them hit it off from the first moment. The
ensuing story, through which is revealed many things about the star’s
long and active professional life, is really a story about a very
affectionate May-December relationship. And on that level, it is
perfection. It is amusing — you sometimes laugh out loud — and
you come to develop the same kind of fondness for Hepburn as the
author had.
She was always a difficult card in the deck, although
ultimately an ace. She was of a generation where women
were taken seriously only if they took themselves seriously
first and made sure everyone knew it. She wasn’t
an intellectual, but she was smart, and a thinker when
it behooved her. She had a woman’s cleverness in
using her sex to allay a man, including the author.
 |
Tracy
and Hepburn's first on-screen pairing in Woman
of the Year (1942)
|
|
Coincidentally
I had just read The Unexpurgated Beaton; the Cecil
Beaton Diaries as he wrote them ... ” (“introduced
by Hugo Vickers”) (Weidenfeld & Nicholson)
in which he recounted working with Hepburn for the Alan
Jay Lerner musical “Coco” (based on the life
of Coco Chanel). Beaton’s vehemence for
the woman was so palpable you could laugh out loud at what a nightmare
she could be just to be around.
Movie stars, more than any other kind of
star, were (probably still are) extreme
examples of humanity devoured by ego. They get the kind
of attention every day of their lives that most of us
get only when we’re infants (and if we’re
lucky). It’s all about them. They can’t help
it; the process brainwashes them. Hepburn was no different,
plus she had those aforementioned characteristics of
her class which she brought to the table (and the
screen).
But, aside from trusting Mr. Berg, with her (version of the) story,
the two of them really liked each other. And there is something so
wonderful and restorative in reading about that kind of relationship
between two people, any two people, that the book is infused with
the pleasure. It also gives you a very big clue into all of Hepburn’s
relationships. |
Spencer
Tracy and Katharine Hepburn (above, right: In Pat and Mike).
|
The
book is also an authentic “insider’s” look at
Hollywood and stars. Although it is typical of Hollywood’s
version of anything, very light on the nitty-gritty. The long
mythologized relationship between Hepburn and Spencer
Tracy has been reclassified in Anne Edward’s
biography of Hepburn, first published in 1989.
Most recently Edwards was quoted in Publisher’s
Weekly on the “truth” about the couple:
"She was a woman who fictionalized her life to the public," Edwards
said. "She romanticized and fictionalized her relationship with
Spencer Tracy, a bisexual, abusive alcoholic — not so much
physically as verbally abusive ..."
"... she was not honest about her life. Between the lines, I was able to
say that she lived a bisexual life most of her life. She and Spencer were great
beards for each other throughout their lives. I can understand why she would
have to keep her sexuality a secret, but in later years I felt it was less moral
of her to never make some sort of gesture to the gay community. This was, after
all, a woman who married a gay man and took her longtime companion, Laura Harding,
on their honeymoon."
 |
Hepburn
and Tracy in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967)
|
|
Scott
Berg’s book handles those realities and possibilities forthrightly
but avoids getting down to brass tacks, as they used to say in
Hepburn’s part of the world. Although we live in a much more
open-minded society than our forefathers, the issue of homosexuality
remains, despite all liberation, a difficult and sensitive matter
to reveal, relate and define not only for public individuals but
for most private individuals also. This is just a reality of these
times.
The alleged homosexuality of both Hepburn and Tracy was
never unknown to certain individuals in Hollywood, which is also
a community that is as homophobic as it gets, ironic as that is,
considering. Technically speaking they may have been “in the
closet” as far as the public goes, but their lives were not
entirely secret, as it is with anyone who has a sexual relationship.
However, Hepburn and Tracy did have a very powerful relationship
that was entirely male-female and there can be no doubt that they
shared a great love and caring for one another. As anyone who has
ever had a long-term relationship and/or marriage knows, this is
very hard to come by in life no matter whom you prefer.
That powerful relationship of Hepburn and Tracy is very interestingly
articulated in Berg’s book. The reader is reminded of his or
her own life with another person, as a member of a family, and so
Berg’s story is very affecting emotionally. In fact, Hepburn’s
relationship with anyone is well-captured in Berg’s exposition
of the relationship between himself and the star.
It has been complained about that Hepburn was so manipulative
(and if you read what Cecil Beaton says about her, you don’t
doubt it — with a vengeance), so much so that she was able
to engineer her own “tell-all memoir.” This (runaway
bestselling) book which she “gave” to Scott Berg, in
which she had her own last word is said to demonstrate that point.
If so, that it does — with the brilliance that goes with the
myth of stardom.
It’s also
been reported that Katharine Hepburn wanted this book published
as soon after her death as possible. And lo, it is probably one
of the great feats of publishing that the speed of the printing
of Kate Remembered almost rivals that of a daily paper.
She was a girl who knew how to get what she wanted. Much of the
time, if not all of the time.
Berg’s book gives the reader the essence of this woman with
certainty. From it you can see for yourself: she had the talent to
see the talent that could give her talent its best shot: hers being
the talent to amuse, to intrigue and to prevail. Berg delivers the
original Hepburn the Original. |
|
|
|
|
