Fade to Black: A Book of Movie Obituaries

by Paul Donnelley

  CAUSE: On July 2, 1996 (the 35th anniversary of her grandfather’s death), Margaux’s neighbours alerted police to the fact that they hadn’t seen the actress since June 29. On breaking into her Santa Monica, California, studio flat via a second-floor window, police discovered Margaux’s body; it was in an advanced state of decomposition and dental records had to be utilised for identification. The Los Angeles Coroner’s Office announced that Margaux Hemingway had committed suicide by taking an overdose of Phenobarbital. She was the fifth member of her family to commit suicide. She was buried in Ketchum Cemetery, Ketchum, Idaho. “In my case drink became such a problem, I thought about suicide,” she had once said, ominously. “It’s like I’m genetically programmed for disaster.”

  David Hemmings

  Born November 18, 1941

  Died December 3, 2004

  Sixties heart-throb. Born in Guildford, Surrey, the son of a dance band pianist who gave it up for an office job to support his family, Hemmings began his film career aged 12 appearing in The Rainbow Jacket (1954). He was also a boy soprano for whom Benjamin Britten wrote some of his important child roles. His first success, and of enduring significance, came on September 14, 1954 when, aged 12, he sang the treble role of Miles, the sinister child, opposite Joan Cross and Peter Pears in the world première of Britten’s The Turn Of The Screw. When Hemmings’ voice broke he studied painting at the Epsom School of Art, where he staged his first exhibition at 15. In his early British films he was often cast as a misunderstood and belligerent youth, leading to his role in Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blowup, which won the Palm d’Or at Cannes in 1967. “I desperately wanted to work for him,” Hemmings later said of Antonioni. “This was a job you seek.” He played Thomas, a fashion photographer, reportedly based on David Bailey, who believes he may have unwittingly photographed a dead man. The sequence was shot in Maryon Park in East Greenwich. Scenes in which he photographed a model, played by Verushka, have often been ranked among the sexiest moments captured on screen. He was also in the science-fiction romp Barbarella (1968) opposite Jane Fonda and the film version of the stage musical Camelot (1967). He rode with Lord Cardigan as a dashing, insubordinate cavalry officer in Tony Richardson’s revisionist The Charge Of The Light Brigade (1968). On April 22, 1975, 5́ 10˝ Hemmings played the title role in Jeeves, a short-running collaboration between Alan Ayckbourn and Andrew Lloyd Webber at Her Majesty’s Theatre. The show closed five weeks later. With Running Scared (1972) he began a career as a director of several movie and television productions in Britain, Australia and Canada. His directing credits included the movie Just A Gigolo (1979) and the television shows Magnum, P.I. (1980), The A-Team (1983), Airwolf (1984) and Quantum Leap (1989). Of his apparent long absence, he famously remarked: “People thought I was dead – I was just directing The A-Team.” He returned to acting with the role of Cassius, the master of ceremonies, in Gladiator (2000). Other recent roles included parts in Spy Game (2001) as Harry Duncan, Last Orders (2001) as Lenny, Mean Machine (2001) as the governor, Gangs Of New York (2002) as Mr Schermerhorn and The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003) as Nigel. Hemmings married four times. His first wife was Genista Ouvry whom he married on March 25, 1961 at St John’s Church, Hurst Green, Surrey and by whom he had two children. Their daughter Deborah was born on April 13, 1962. They divorced in 1967. On November 16, 1968 he married Gayle Hunnicutt by whom he had a son, Nolan (b. September 23, 1970), named after Hemmings’ character in The Charge Of The Light Brigade. On July 23, 1974 Hunnicutt filed for divorce and received her decree nisi on December 19, 1974. The following year on March 19, 1976 at Chelsea Register Office he married his secretary, Baroness Prudence de Casembroot, by whom he had three children. Son George was born six weeks after the wedding. Charlotte was born on February 16, 1983 and William arrived on July 25, 1984. He had a couple of significant affairs – with a British journalist based in California, and with Tessa Dahl, daughter of the writer Roald Dahl. Hemmings became an alcoholic with the strain of juggling two women – his wife and Dahl. Eventually, he and Dahl booked themselves into a drying out clinic in Minnesota. He and his wife were divorced in 1997. On October 18, 2002 he married Lucy Williams, a former assistant to the milliner David Schilling. Away from show business, Hemmings was a talented artist, poet, amateur magician, brilliant mimic and raconteur. He loved the Sixties, he loved being recognised and he loved living life to the full. “I had as much debauchery as anyone else,” he once said.

  CAUSE: Hemmings died of a heart attack while filming Samantha’s Child in Bucharest, Rumania. Paramedics on the film set were unable to revive him. He was 62.

  Paul Henreid

  (PAUL GEORGE JULIUS HERNREID RITTER VON WASEL -WALDINGAU)

  Born January 10, 1908

  Died March 29, 1992

  Cigarette lighter extraordinaire. Born in Trieste, Austria, he was discovered by Otto Preminger in 1933. Henreid became a leading light in Max Reinhardt’s Viennese theatre. He emigrated first to England in 1935 and then to America in 1940, where he became a US citizen and film star. He participated in one of the most memorable cinematic scenes of all time. In Now Voyager (1942) as Jerry Durrance in Rio he lights two cigarettes and passes one to Bette Davis. This scene was Henreid’s own idea. It was a habit for him and his wife Lisl (whom he married in 1936). “Back when cars didn’t have lighters, and I was driving and wanted to smoke, she would light our cigarettes that way.” He played Victor Laszlo opposite Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca (1942) and later moved behind the cameras to direct for film and TV. His films included Goodbye, Mr Chips (1939) as Staefel, Of Human Bondage (1946) as Philip Carey about which Richard Winnington commented, “He looks as though his idea of fun would be to find a nice cold damp grave and sit in it,” Song Of Love (1947) as Robert Schumann, Siren Of Bagdad (1953) as Kazah, Deep In My Heart (1954) as Florenz Ziegfeld, Meet Me In Las Vegas (1956) as Pierre, Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse (1961) as Etienne Laurier, Operation Crossbow (1965) as General Ziemann and his last film Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) as the Cardinal. Henreid was interested in almost everyone. “Only on rare occasions have I met someone who didn’t interest me in some manner. Each person has a story to tell.”

  CAUSE: He died in California of pneumonia aged 84.

  Jim Henson

  Born September 24, 1936

  Died May 16, 1990

  Muppeteer. James Maury Henson, the man who created the Muppets, was born in Greenville, Mississippi. He became a professional puppeteer in the Forties creating characters that would feature on the television series Sesame Street. In 1965 he won an Oscar for the short film Time Piece. Four years later, he had a world-wide hit with the Muppets as creator, producer, writer and vocal artiste. His films included Frog Prince (1972), The Great Muppet Caper (1981), The Dark Crystal (1982), The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984), Labyrinth (1986) and Muppet*vision 3-D (1991).

  CAUSE: He died of a bacteriological condition in New York aged 53.

  Audrey Hepburn

  (EDDA KATHLEEN VAN HEEMSTRA HEPBURN-RUSTON)

  Born May 4, 1929

  Died January 20, 1993

  Will-o’-the-wisp. Born at 48 rue Keyenveld, Brussels, Belgium, she was the gamine 5‰7½˝ daughter of Anglo-Irish Joseph Victor Anthony Hepburn-Ruston (b. Ouzice, Austria, 1889, d. Ireland, 1980), an extreme right winger and director of the Brussels branch of the Bank of England and Baroness Ella van Heemstra (b. 1900), a Dutch aristocrat. Following her parents’ divorce in 1935 she was sent to school in London but was on holiday with her mother on September 1, 1939, when war broke out. She stayed in Holland for the duration and studied ballet. She also worked for the resistance for a while, entertaining the troops. At the cessation of hostilities she joined the Ballet Rambert in London. Audrey became a model and chorus girl before landing small parts in films such as The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) as Chiquita. It was in 1951, when she was cast as Gigi on Broadway at the behest of Colette, that she became a star. She won an Oscar for Princess Ann in Roman Holiday (1953) opposite Gregor
y Peck and appeared in Sabrina (1954) as Sabrina Fairchild, for which she was nominated for another Oscar, King Vidor’s War And Peace (1956) as Natasha Rostov, Love In The Afternoon (1957) as Ariane Chavasse, Funny Face (1957) opposite Fred Astaire and The Nun’s Story (1959) as Sister Luke, which earned her another Oscar nod. In Burgenstock, Switzerland, on September 25, 1954, she married Mel Ferrer and their son, Sean, was born in Lucerne on January 17, 1960. The following year she appeared in Breakfast At Tiffany’s (1961) as Holly Golightly and received her third (unsuccessful) Oscar nomination. She played Eliza Doolittle in the film version of My Fair Lady (1964), as Nicole Bonnet in How To Steal A Million (1966), as Joanna Wallace in Two For The Road (1967) and appeared as a blind woman terrorised by unknown forces in Wait Until Dark (1967), which earned her fifth and final Oscar nomination. Thereafter she announced her retirement. On November 20, 1968, she and Ferrer were divorced. She met her second husband, Dr Andrea Dotti (b. March 18, 1938), in the early Sixties at a party. However, it wasn’t until June 1968 on a cruise of the Greek islands that they got talking and Audrey told him she did not remember meeting him before. Audrey had by then split from her first husband, and had been invited by two friends to join them on their luxury yacht. The vessel was full of immensely rich people but the one who caught her eye was 30-year-old psychiatrist Dr Dotti. As a 14-year-old boy he had seen Audrey in Roman Holiday (1953) and had rushed home to tell his mother that he had fallen in love with the star and would, one day, marry her. Dotti proposed to Audrey at Christmas 1968 in Rome. They married on January 18, 1969, in the town hall of Morges in Switzerland. The ceremony was conducted by the registrar Madame Denise Rattaz, who at one point had to stop the ceremony because she herself was crying. Audrey wore a pink suit, a gift designed by Givenchy, and her bridesmaids included Yul Brynner’s wife Doris and the lesbian actress Capucine. There were three dozen guests. Audrey fell pregnant in April 1969 and gave birth to son, Luca, by Caesarean section on February 8, 1970, in the Cantonial Hospital, Lausanne, Switzerland. The joy was tempered by Dotti’s philandering. In August 1970 the couple healed their rifts. Not for long. Dotti was soon back on the town with various women and things were not helped when Audrey had a miscarriage. In an attempt to patch things up the couple had a ‘honeymoon’ in Hawaii. It didn’t work and Audrey began an affair with actor Ben Gazzara but it was not to last and she became romantically entangled with Robert Wolders, the widower of actress Merle Oberon, and “the only Dutchman to be cast as a Texas lawman” in the hit TV series Laredo. Audrey and Dotti were divorced in 1982, a year after she began living with Wolders. She had made a brief comeback in Robin And Marian (1976) as Lady Marian and also appeared in Bloodline (1979) as Elizabeth Roffe, They All Laughed (1981) as Angela Niotes and her last film Always (1989) as Hap. She spent her final years as a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF.

  CAUSE: She died in Tolochenaz, Switzerland of colon cancer aged 63. Robert Wolders and her two sons were by her side. She was buried four days later.

  FURTHER READING: Audrey: A Biography Of Audrey Hepburn – Charles Higham (London: New English Library, 1986); Audrey: An Intimate Portrait – Diana Maychick (London: Pan Books, 1994); Audrey: Her Real Story – Alexander Walker (London: Orion, 1995).

  Katharine Hepburn

  Born May 12, 1907

  Died June 29, 2003

  ‘Katharine of Arrogance’. Though Katharine Hepburn made only some 40 films in a career that spanned more than half a century, she won four Oscars and was nominated eight more times, more than any other star (her record stood until Meryl Streep overtook her in 2003). Her poise, her voice, her lack of pretension, her style made her unique in Hollywood. Tallulah Bankhead once described her voice as “nickels dropping in a slot machine” although the lady herself said it was a cross “between Donald Duck and a Stradivarius” but was actually caused by nodules on her vocal cords when she was young. Katharine Houghton Hepburn was born at 3.47pm at 22 Hudson Street, Hartford, Connecticut, the second of six children born to Dr Thomas Norval Hepburn (b. Hanover County, Virginia, December 18, 1879, Hartford, Connecticut as Norval Thomas Hepburn, d. November 20, 1962 of complications following a burst gall bladder), a noted urologist, and Katharine Martha Houghton (b. Connecticut, February 2, 1878, d. 201 Bloomfield Avenue, Hartford, Connecticut, March 17, 1951). Both were tall for their time, he stood 5́ 11˝ while his wife was 5˝8˝. Kate stood 5˝7˝. The other children were: Thomas Houghton (b. 22 Hudson Street, Hartford, Connecticut, November 8, 1905), Richard Houghton (b. 133 Hawthorn Street, Hartford, Connecticut, September 8, 1911, who was educated at Harvard and became a playwright; he married twice, firstly to Elizabeth Ballard and then to Estelle Morrison. Both marriages ended in divorce and he died in October 2000), Robert Houghton (b. 133 Hawthorn Street, Hartford, Connecticut, April 4, 1913, who was educated at Harvard and became a doctor; he married Susanna Floyd), Marion Houghton (b. 352 Laurel Street, Hartford, Connecticut, April 24, 1918, m. June 12, 1938 Ellsworth Grant, d. 1986 of a heart attack) and Margaret Houghton known as Peg (b. 352 Laurel Street, Hartford, Connecticut, May 17, 1920, who married and divorced the engineer Thomas Perry and became a farmer in Canton, New Jersey. She gave birth to twins in Washington, DC in 1942 and needed a blood transfusion. The blood was provided by Kate’s ex-husband). The Hepburns did not court polite society. In fact, Dr Hepburn angered people by publicising the dangers of venereal disease while Mrs Hepburn was a suffragette who campaigned vigorously for women’s rights, at one point picketing the White House. “We were snubbed by everyone,” Katharine Hepburn recalled, “but we grew quite to enjoy that.” Within the family, though, the atmosphere was intensely competitive. Her father insisted that all the children become athletes, and her childhood was dedicated to swimming, riding, golf and tennis – a regime that left her, in her own words, “very strong and utterly fearless”. She wore trousers long before it was socially acceptable for young girls to do so and shaved her hair so local boys couldn’t grab it. Of her siblings she was closest to Tom, a sensitive boy. Kate adored him and he her. They spent much of their time together and the spring of 1921 was no exception. Two days after Easter, Tom, Kate and their mother travelled to Mary Towle’s house at 26 Charlton Street in New York’s Greenwich Village. She had been at college with Mrs Hepburn and was Tom’s godmother. On Saturday, April 2, Mary Towle invited eight neighbourhood teens over to play with Tom and Kate. The children had lots of fun and games. Tom was a success although Kate was shy and reserved. At 10.15pm, the other children long gone, the Hepburns went to bed. However, at 8am the next morning, when Tom had not come down for breakfast, Kate went to his attic bedroom to wake him. She found him next to the bed, knees bent, hanging from a rafter by a torn sheet. She managed to cut him down but was unable to revive him. The next-door neighbour, Judge Bertha Rembaugh, took charge and a doctor pronounced death had occurred at 3am. No one knows for sure why Tom died. Local newspapers announced the death as a suicide. Kate felt it must have been an accident. Two days before his death they had seen the film A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court in which a man was hanged from a tree. Kate assumed her brother had tried to imitate the actor with tragic consequences. Their father believed that it had been an accident. Dr Hepburn had told his children of a trick whereby one pretended to hang and held the neck in a certain position so that the airway was not cut off. Did Tom try this but with a sheet instead of a rope and been unable to stop the sheet slipping? Another theory was that Tom killed himself in despair at having been rejected by a local girl. Yet another was that Tom had fallen in love with an older boy called Tracy Walker whose mother was a prostitute. Tracy lured Tom into the Hartford woods in order, Tom believed, to consummate their passion only for Tom to be cruelly disabused. Three other boys from their school jumped out and called Tom “a faggot”. A fortnight later, Tom and Kate travelled to Mary Towle’s in New York. Whatever the reason, Tom wanted to die. He tore a sheet and braided it into a rope. Tying one end to a large metal bedspring on the floor, he fashioned a noose, t
ossed the sheet rope over a rafter and put his head in the noose. Climbing onto a packing case, he jumped but the sheet rope was too long and he landed on his feet. Tom then bent his knees and pushed forward with all his strength. He died of slow strangulation. According to the police, Tom Hepburn, 15, had done “hard work to die”. In memory of her brother Kate adopted his birthday and did not admit her real natal day until the publication of her autobiography, Me, when she was in her eighties. It was not the first suicide in the family. Alfred Houghton, Kate’s 41-year-old grandfather, shot himself in the head on October 29, 1892, while suffering from melancholia. Two of Kate’s uncles on her father’s side also died by their own hands. On April 16, 1915, Charlie Hepburn flung himself out of the fourth storey of his home and impaled himself on the railings below. He died at 4.55pm, never regaining consciousness. On April 5, 1921, Sewell Hepburn killed himself at his home, 54 State Circle, in Annapolis, Maryland, with carbon monoxide poisoning, locking his garage doors and turning on his car’s ignition. Kate was educated by private tutors and then at the Hartford School for Girls but she did not excel academically. She was later sent to Bryn Mawr College (her mother’s alma mater) to study drama but again she did not put too much effort into her studies. On October 20, 1927, she was suspended for five days after being caught smoking in the dorm. She graduated on June 7, 1928 and later that year lost her virginity to the bisexual stage manager Kenneth MacKenna. 1928 was a busy year sexually for Katharine Hepburn. It was the year she began an affair with Laura Barney Harding, the American Express heiress. Even after the flames of passion had died, they remained very close friends until Harding’s death in 1994. On December 12, 1928, at 201 Bloomfield Avenue, Hartford, amid some unexplained secrecy, Kate married the wealthy socialite Ludlow ‘Luddy’ Ogden Smith (b. 1897; m. (secondly) September 26, 1942 Elizabeth Albers (b. 1918), d. 1979 of prostate cancer) in a ceremony conducted by the Reverend Sewell Stavely Hepburn, her paternal grandfather, and, at 83, the oldest Episcopalian minister in Virginia. Cocking another snook at conventionality, Kate posed nude for sculptures by Robert J. McKnight. During her courtship with Luddy she had posed for several hundred nude photographs taken by her boyfriend and his best friend (and some say lover), John G. ‘Jack’ Clarke. Kate and Luddy honeymooned in Bermuda – with Jack Clarke and Laura Harding for company. The marriage was a disaster. “I was a terrible pig. In those days it was all me, me, me,” she recalled. “All I thought about was what Luddy could do to make me happy.” One thing to make her happy was a name change. Kate persuaded her new groom to change it to S. Ogden Ludlow so that she would not be called Kate Smith. However, she had no desire to settle down to domesticity. She had a career to think about. After three weeks they separated, although the marriage was not dissolved until Kate travelled to Mérida, Mexico, on April 22, 1934. Eight days later, she filed for divorce and it became final on May 30, 1934. However, on September 19, 1942, Luddy filed a divorce suit against Kate in Hartford charging desertion and claiming that he doubted the validity of the 1934 Mexican divorce. After graduating she found work with a Baltimore repertory company and then through some string pulling, landed her first role on Broadway, suitably enough as a rich schoolgirl in These Days. The play opened at the Cort Theater on November 12, 1928 and closed after just eight performances. Kate didn’t suffer fools gladly and she was fired from several shows for arguing with the director. Her breakthrough came on March 11, 1932, when she played Antiope, an Amazon queen, in The Warrior’s Husband, an updated version of Lysistrata in Broadway’s Morosco Theater. However, even from this play she was sacked and reinstated twice before the opening night. Kate was a bag of nerves before the curtain went up and was sick twice. The part required her to enter by leaping down a flight of 40 steep steps three at a time while carrying a large stag (actually a stuffed deer) on her shoulders. The show ran for 83 performances and Kate was paid $150 a week (later reduced to $75 when box office takings dwindled). The play received mixed notices but Kate’s were universally good. An RKO talent scout in the audience was so impressed by this feat – or was it the short skirt she wore – that he offered her a film test. The test was directed by Lillie Messenger and shot at a studio hired by RKO at West 59th Street and Tenth Avenue in New York. She acted a scene from Holiday. David O. Selznick needed someone to play opposite John Barrymore in A Bill Of Divorcement (1932). Selznick was at first unsure of Kate’s ability but he was persuaded by his wife, Irene Mayer Selznick, and the director George Cukor. Kate was then earning $75 a week but demanded – and got – $1,500 a week, with three weeks guaranteed work plus a week of rehearsal. With the faithful Laura Harding in tow, Kate set off for Hollywood on July 1, 1932. During the long train journey, Kate had stood on the observation platform but as the train left Albuquerque a piece of steel rail had hit her in the eye. When the train pulled into Pasadena three days later both her eyes were horribly swollen. Leland Hayward and Myron Selznick met her at the station and the men were horrified to see her appearance. “This is what David’s paying $1,500 a week for?” reputedly said Myron Selznick. (He later denied making any such comment “although it makes a good line.”) They took her to the studios where she was introduced to David O. Selznick but the meeting was awkward. Next they met the homosexual director George Cukor who criticised her hair and clothes. They began arguing when John Barrymore wandered by. Seeing Kate’s red eyes he assumed that she had been drinking and offered her his own curative. “I also hit the bottle occasionally, my dear. But I have a perfect disguise. You see this little phial of eyedrops? When I use it, it clears up the inflammation right away. People think I’ve been cold sober.” Kate protested, “Mr Barrymore, I have something in my eye.” Barrymore looked at her and wandered off, saying, “That’s what they all say, my dear.” Cukor arranged for Kate to visit an optometrist who removed the pieces of grit but Kate had to wear an eye patch for several days afterwards. During filming with Barrymore the Great Profile invited Kate to his dressing room whereupon he stripped off. Kate was terrified. “My dear, any young girl would be thrilled to make love to the great John Barrymore,” he said. “Not me,” said Kate. “My father doesn’t want me to make babies.” On set he pinched her behind. She turned on him, “If you do that again, I’m going to stop acting.” “I wasn’t aware you’d started, my dear,” said Barrymore. Both were later to deny the exchange occurred. “I would never have been so gratuitously cruel to a young newcomer like that. Coming from me, it might have seriously inhibited her acting,” he said. Barrymore was later to claim that he did seduce Kate. In Hollywood Kate discovered that her outspoken ways with directors and crew meant that she was no more popular there than she had been on Broadway. She refused to do promotional interviews or pose for publicity stills or go on “dates” with male stars. She read her fan mail sitting on the pavement outside RKO. She played practical jokes on her co-workers and took to walking around with a pet monkey on her shoulder. George Cukor described her behaviour as “idiotic”. Nevertheless, Cukor became a close friend, and showed her the difference between stage and film acting. “George taught me how to be funny,” Hepburn later recalled. Her second film for RKO was supposed to be Three Came Unarmed in which she was set to appear opposite the bisexual Joel McCrea. The film never came to fruition because of script problems. Her next film saw her working with another homosexual director. However, unlike George Cukor, Dorothy Arzner insisted on absolute silence on her set for Christopher Strong (opened on March 10, 1933) in which Kate played Lady Cynthia Darrington, an aviatrix (based on the English flier Amy Johnson). Arzner referred to Kate as “Miss Hepburn” for the entirety of the shoot. It was not a happy experience. The weather was poor and Kate fell ill with a mix of the flu and gynaecological problems. The two women argued frequently and the film was not even redeemed by being a box office success. Arzner was due to direct the next Hepburn vehicle but the mauling she received over Christopher Strong meant she pulled out of the project. Lowell Sherman stepped into the breach. While the script was being worked on,
Kate began an affair with her theatrical agent Leland Hayward, who was charming, groomed, intelligent, loquacious, and even owned a gold mine but was incapable of fidelity. The film, Morning Glory (1933), which was shot in just 17 days, won Kate her first Oscar. She played Eva Lovelace, a tomboy who longed to be a star and received top billing (above Douglas Fairbanks, Jr with whom she had a brief fling) in the movie posters. It was a perfect role for her. Oddly, she was not the first choice. The studio wanted Constance Bennett. The writer Zoë Akins had based the character on Tallulah Bankhead. For her next film she appeared as Jo March in Cukor’s version of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women (opened November 1933) for which she won the Venice Film Award. The film, which was the last that David O. Selznick supervised at RKO, was also a hit at the box office. Spitfire (1934), in which Kate played Trigger Hicks, a wild girl of the mountains, proved that her talent did not extend to playing primitive or uncouth. On Boxing Day, 1933 she opened in New York in the Dorothy Massingham play The Lake. It was a mistake. The next day Dorothy Parker wrote a famous review, “Go to the Martin Beck [theatre] and watch Katharine Hepburn run the gamut of emotion from A to B”. Kate was later to describe the quote as “extremely funny and accurate”. Kate’s voice had run up and down the scale and she employed a vocal coach called Suzanne Steele to help her. She also ended up in bed with Steele which brought her affair with Laura Harding to a temporary end. It took her $13,675.75 – all her savings – to buy the play out from the producer and her former lover Jed Harris (b. Vienna, Austria, February 25, 1900 as Jacob Horowitz, d. New York, November 14, 1979) and stop it going to Chicago where she would have faced further humiliation. The play closed on February 10, 1934 after 55 performances. Two days later, she sailed for France aboard the SS Paris for a holiday with Suzanne Steele. Kate did not attend the Academy Awards at which she won her first Oscar, which were held on March 16, 1934 at the Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles, setting a precedent that would last for 40 years. Aboard the Paris with her girlfriend she wired Leland Hayward asking him to forward it to the Academy. It read: “I do not believe in acting contests, finding them silly, and therefore must refuse your offer of an award.” Hayward did not do as he was asked and instead sent a gracious thank you in Kate’s name to the Academy. By the time the ship arrived in France Kate and Suzanne Steele had fallen out and Kate wired Laura Harding asking her to take her back. She was also bored by France and spent just four days in the country before returning to America. Aboard the ship on the return voyage were Ernest Hemingway and Marlene Dietrich. Kate began a brief but passionate affair with Papa Hemingway. Her next film was J.M. Barrie’s The Little Minister (1934) in which she played Lady Babbie. Kate later confessed that jealousy had spurred her to take away the part from her love rival Margaret Sullavan, not that she gained much by the theft. The film opened at Radio City Music Hall in late 1934 to the largest crowd in the cinema’s history but flopped everywhere else. Meanwhile, her next film, Philip Moeller’s Break Of Heart (1935) was another flop. Kate played Constance Dane Roberti, a composer who falls in love with Charles Boyer’s alcoholic conductor, Franz Roberti. The film, called The Music Man, had been intended as a vehicle for Kate and John Barrymore but Francis Lederer replaced him after he and Kate fell out spectacularly. Although Boyer had only recently married, he and Kate began an affair that lasted as many cinematic flings do – only for the length of filming. Then came the title role in George Stevens’ Alice Adams (1935). Critics applauded Kate’s performance as Alice, a social-climbing, small-town girl and she was nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award. Kate had a 10-day affair with her co-star Fred MacMurray during filming. Frank Albertson was cast as Alice’s brother although Kate thought him too common for the role. She later admitted that he was terrific. Hattie McDaniel played the slatternly maid, Malena. The film was also nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. At the ceremony, held at the Biltmore Hotel on March 5, 1936, it lost out to Mutiny On The Bounty and Kate lost to Bette Davis for Dangerous. It was around this time that her affairs with Laura Harding and Leland Hayward ended. Hayward married Margaret Sullavan on November 15, 1936 and Kate went back east to live her own life. In Kate’s next film, Sylvia Scarlett, (released on January 3, 1936) she played the title role who masquerades as a boy, Sylvester Scarlett, to escape from France. She also had her head shaved. The film was based on the Compton Mackenzie book Early Life And Adventures Of Sylvia Scarlett. The talented cast included Cary Grant as the crook Jimmy Monkley, Brian Aherne as Sylvia’s love interest Michael Fane and Edmund Gwenn as her father. Grant was paid $15,000 for his part while Kate received $50,000. Cast and crew believed that they had a hit on their hands and Kate even attended the preview in Huntingdon Park, breaking her usual rule. The film was way ahead of its time and three-quarters of the audience walked out while the rest stayed to boo and jeer. They did not like or understand the bisexual overtones and in a bid to soften the story Cukor changed the beginning and the ending which he later admitted was a mistake. Kate and the director George Cukor told the producer Pandro Berman that they would make the next film for nothing to make up for the disappointment. He was not impressed, and said, “Don’t bother.” Following a series of flops Kate was disheartened and began to doubt her ability, even believing her career might be about to peter out. Her next film, Mary Of Scotland (released on July 30, 1936), though directed by John Ford, in which Kate played Mary, Queen of Scots, was laughable. Ford, who disapproved of her fondness for trousers, challenged Kate to a game of golf at $100 a hole. He added the side bet, “If you lose you’ll agree to come to the studio at least one day dressed like a woman.” Hepburn replied, “And if I win will you come dressed as a gentleman?” Kate believed that Mary was “a bit of an ass” and that her cousin Elizabeth I would have made a better subject. During filming Kate believed that John Ford saved her life. “I was riding at full gallop and suddenly he yelled, ‘Duck!’ I did and if I hadn’t I’d have been killed instantly. There was a branch I hadn’t seen.” Her next film, A Woman Rebels (1936), in which Kate played Pamela Thistlewaite, also flopped. Next was a film version of J.M. Barrie’s Quality Street (1937) – another failure to add to a worryingly long list. Kate decided to take a break from film-making and return to the theatre. In November 1936 she began dating the eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes. Back in Hollywood, in the winter of 1937, Kate was depressed. She was then sent a script for a story about life in a New York theatrical boarding house. Stage Door (which opened on November 12, 1937), directed by Gregory La Cava in which she starred with Ginger Rogers and Constance Collier, gave her back some much-needed confidence. Kate seemed more comfortable in comedies and reached her comic peak playing Susan Vance, a scatterbrained Connecticut heiress in Howard Hawks’ screwball comedy Bringing Up Baby (released February 18, 1938), with Cary Grant (the baby of the title was a leopard). During filming Kate was in high spirits and became rather talkative. Hawks called for silence on the set but Kate carried on with her conversation. Eventually, she realised everyone was looking at her and asked Hawks what was going on. “I was waiting for the parrot to stop talking,” he said. Kate beckoned him to one side. “Howard, these people are friends of mine. If you say things like that to me, you’re liable to get into trouble.” Hawks recalled, “I glanced up and there was an electrician in the flies above us with a big lamp. I called up to him, ‘Eddie, if you had a choice of dropping that lamp on me or Miss Hepburn, which would you choose?’ And he called back, ‘Step aside, Mr Hawks.’” Kate was also quick to improvise. During one scene her shoe broke and as she limped around the set, she said to Cary Grant, “I was born on the side of a hill.” The picture is still routinely cited as one of the best examples of its kind although at the time it proved too sophisticated for the mass audiences. It was also her last film for RKO and it lost the studio $365,000. On May 3, 1938, Kate was included in a list of “box office poison” created by Harry Brandt, the president of the Independent Theatre Owners Association along with Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo, Kay Francis, Joan Cra
wford and others. “They say I’m a has-been,” said Kate. “If I weren’t laughing so much, I’d cry.” However, that may not have been the complete truth. Stories have emerged that the next day Kate threatened to commit suicide by jumping from a studio window. It took 90 minutes of persuasion from Cary Grant to talk her back into the room and safety. Kate next made Holiday (released on June 15, 1938) on a loan-out to Columbia from RKO who wanted to get rid of her. It cost Kate $75,000 to make Holiday but she more than recouped that as her fee from Columbia was $150,000. In the late Thirties Hollywood was awash with the excitement of filming Gone With The Wind, Margaret Mitchell’s epic novel. Kate wanted to play Scarlett O’Hara, as did almost every other actress of the period. Her contract was up for renewal and Kate said that she would not return to the studio unless she was allowed to play Scarlett. A stumbling block was David O. Selznick who did not want her to play the role despite the pleas from Kate’s friend George Cukor who was hired to direct the picture. “She has no sex appeal,” said Selznick. When Kate approached him and demanded to know why he would not cast her, he was blunt: “Because, my dear, I can’t see Rhett Butler chasing you for twelve years.” Kate spent the summer of 1938 at her home, Fenwick, in Connecticut. However, the house was all but destroyed by a hurricane in September of that year and had to be rebuilt. Kate was offered two story ideas by Philip Barry, the author of Holiday, one about a father and daughter which was of no interest and the other about an heiress called Tracy Lord. Kate was interested in the Tracy Lord story “provided I don’t play Scarlett O’Hara first”. On January 17, 1939, the chimney in her New York home at 244 East 49th Street caught fire and she had to evacuate while firemen put out the blaze. On March 28, 1939, Kate opened in the Tracy Lord tale, now entitled The Philadelphia Story at the Shubert Theatre on Broadway. Despite a talented cast including Joseph Cotton and Dan Tobin, Kate was convinced that the play in New York was going to be yet another disaster to add to her catalogue of woes. She could not have been more wrong. The play ran for 415 performances, grossing $961,310.37 and then 254 more shows on tour, grossing a further $753,538.50. Kate took 10 per cent as salary and owned a further quarter share in the production. The Philadelphia Story made her a very rich woman. Kate decided to make a film version and Howard Hughes bought the rights for her. However, Kate’s temperament, not to mention her “box office poison” label, made it all but impossible to sell. Louis B. Mayer at MGM was a friend and admirer of Kate’s and he agreed to make The Philadelphia Story with her and Spencer Tracy and Clark Gable. When approached they refused to work with Kate and she was forced to accept two lesser stars – Cary Grant and James Stewart. George Cukor was at the helm for the filming in July and August of 1940. Grant insisted on top billing and a salary of $137,500 which he donated to the British War Relief Fund. Stewart’s performance won him a Best Actor Oscar and the film revitalised Hepburn’s career winning her another Academy Award nomination (although she lost to Ginger Rogers for Kitty Foyle). Finished five days under schedule, it proved to be one of the great Hollywood comedies. The Philadelphia Story was released on December 25, 1940 and took $594,000 during its first six weeks at Radio City Music Hall. The film was later remade as a musical, High Society. Despite a cast of Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly and Louis Armstrong and a music score by Cole Porter, audiences have tended to prefer the original. As the film was going into production Kate began an affair with Claudette Colbert that was to last eight years. She was also the bridesmaid when Laurence Olivier married Vivien Leigh in August 1940. Her next picture, Woman Of The Year (shooting began August 29, 1941; released February 1942, the film was originally entitled The Thing About Women) was the first of nine movies she made with Spencer Tracy. At first it seemed they were destined not to get along. When Joseph L. Mankiewicz introduced Kate to Tracy, she commented on their height disparity, “I’m afraid I’m a little tall for you, Mr Tracy.” “Don’t worry, Kate,” Mankiewicz said, “he’ll soon cut you down to size.” And so he did. (Although this has become the accepted Hollywood story, one biographer claims that the words were uttered to Leslie Howard by Kate in November 1931.) By the end of the Thirties audiences were growing tired of her superior ways; Tracy’s gruff put-downs helped to make her more acceptable. Off screen, their relationship was perhaps more complicated than Hepburn chose to declare. “I don’t believe in marriage,” she proclaimed. “It’s bloody impractical to love, honour and obey. If it weren’t, you wouldn’t have to sign a contract.” Like many of Hepburn’s claims, this was disingenuous. In her autobiography, she barely touched on Tracy’s alcoholism, nor explained why Tracy, though he lived with her for 25 years, never divorced his wife. Interestingly, Kate’s parents disapproved of Spencer Tracy. Their disapproval was not his unwillingness to marry their daughter, nor his abusive alcoholism, nor his penchant for prostitutes and the resulting social diseases that brought, nor his bisexuality (he had affairs with Lew Ayres, Johnny Mack Brown and “half the women in Hollywood”). They disapproved because he bored them and in the Hepburn household that was a terrible sin. On the silver screen, though, there was no ambiguity. “On screen Spencer and I are the perfect American couple,” she once opined. “I needle him. If he put a big paw out and put it on my head, he could squash me. I think that is the romantic, ideal picture of the male and female in this country.” In Woman Of The Year, which was filmed in MGM’s studios at Culver City between August and October 1941, Hepburn was Tess Harding, an ambitious politician, Tracy – Sam Craig a sports journalist; inevitably there were spats; no less inevitably, love emerged triumphant. The film won an Oscar for Best Screenplay and Kate received a Best Actress nomination (losing out to Greer Garson for Mrs Miniver). In George Cukor’s Keeper Of The Flame (released in December 1942) Tracy again appeared as a journalist, but this was a melodrama, with Hepburn as a widow who is made to admit that her husband was a fascist. Cukor recalled, “It was Kate’s last romantic glamour girl part, and she acted with some of that artificiality she’s supposedly left behind at RKO … I don’t think I really believed in the story, it was pure hokey-pokey, and her part was phony.” Without Love (1945) concerned another widow, who lets a scientist move in with her. Next came an “epically dreary” Western, The Sea Of Grass (released April 25, 1947), directed by Elia Kazan, which starred Tracy as Colonel James Brewton, a cattle tycoon so obsessed by his work that he alienates his family. The two of them were back on form in Frank Capra’s State Of The Union (premièred in Washington, DC, April 7, 1948 and released nationwide 23 days later), which presented Tracy as a candidate for the presidency, and Hepburn as the estranged wife who returns to his side. The film contained many cruel barbs at President Harry S Truman but by all accounts he liked the film. The delightful Adam’s Rib (released November 18, 1949), shot in New York by George Cukor, saw Kate as militant feminist lawyer Amanda Bonner defending a dumb blonde (Judy Holliday) for shooting her unfaithful husband. Tracy was the prosecutor Adam Bonner. When the studio began to create the publicity materials Spencer Tracy insisted on top billing. Garson Kanin, the writer, remonstrated with him, “Spencer, didn’t you ever hear of ladies first?” Tracy replied, “This is a movie, chowderhead, not a lifeboat.” Pat And Mike (released June 13, 1952), with Tracy as a sports promoter who takes on Hepburn as Pat Pemberton, the all-round champion, was enjoyable enough. The Desk Set (released May 1957), although an enjoyable movie to make, proved a disappointment. In January 1962 an article appeared in Look that revealed their relationship for the first time as well as Tracy’s alcoholism and his fiery temper. Both Tracy and Hepburn were angry and disappointed by the feature. In their swansong, Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner? (released December 12, 1967), which finished shooting ten days before Tracy’s death, they were a liberal couple, Christine and Matt Drayton, whose principles begin to slip when their daughter Joey (played by Kate’s niece, Katharine Houghton) announces her engagement to John Prentice, a black man (Sidney Poitier). It was said that Kate had only taken her rather underwritten part in Guess Who’s C
oming To Dinner? to be near Tracy at the end. Even if this were so, she was rewarded with yet another Oscar. But she rejected any suggestion of altruism in the devotion she showed in his final illness. “Self-sacrificing women give me melancholia,” she observed. “My mother, who was an angel, said, ‘Please yourself, then at least you’re sure somebody is pleased.’” For some years after meeting Tracy, the films that Hepburn made without him such as Stage Door Canteen (1943) playing herself; Dragon Seed (1944) as Jade opposite Turhan Bey; Undercurrent (November 28, 1946) as Ann Hamilton and Song Of Love (1947), in which she played Clara Schumann were wholly forgettable. The notable exception was The African Queen (released in December 1951), in which she won her second Oscar as Rose Sayer, a prissy spinster, whose missionary brother (played by Robert Morley) has died, and who conceives an affection for Charlie Allnutt, Humphrey Bogart’s gin-soaked river trader. The film has become a classic. Director John Huston told Kate to base her portrayal of Rosie on Eleanor Roosevelt. Filmed on location on the Ruiki River and Butiaba in the Belgian Congo and the Murchison Falls and Lake Albert in Uganda between May and July 17, 1951, every member of the cast and crew suffered from malaria and diarrhoea. Well, not quite everyone. Huston and Bogart escaped the torment because neither of them ever drank any water. Hepburn took a dim view of their nightly binges and, like her character in the film, found consolation in the Bible. Owing to the illnesses much of the film was eventually shot at Isleworth and Shepperton Studios. Staying in London, Kate lived at Claridge’s but upset the hotel management by wearing trousers in the lobby. When it was pointed out that this behaviour was not allowed she used the servants’ entrance for the rest of her stay. Based on C.S. Forester’s novel, Columbia had originally intended The African Queen for Charles Laughton and Elsa Lanchester and then, when they sold it to Warner Bros in 1939, for David Niven and Bette Davis. The irascible Davis (of whom Kate once said, “There’s not a camera lens in Hollywood which could make her look 25.”) argued with the chosen producer and the project fell into abeyance. Bogart initially hated making the film but gradually threw himself into his character and won his only Oscar. Kate was nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award but lost out to Vivien Leigh for A Streetcar Named Desire. Hepburn returned to the theatre, playing Rosalind in As You Like It on Broadway and on tour. On June 27, 1952 she scored a success in London for 12 weeks as Epifania in George Bernard Shaw’s The Millionairess, directed by Michael Benthall. The casting was apt, for Shaw himself had described her as “the born decider, dominator, organiser, tactician, mesmeriser”. Kate travelled over with Constance Collier but producer Binky Beaumont refused to pay for the flight of Collier’s (and later Hepburn’s) secretary Phyllis Wilbourn. Kate cashed in the two aeroplane tickets and bought three for a sea voyage instead. All three women were hopelessly seasick during the entire journey which ended in Southampton on March 19, 1952. When the play opened in New York at the Shubert Theatre on October 17, 1952 it was a flop, partly because of bad reviews and partly because Kate lost her voice on the opening night. Hepburn wanted to make a film of The Millionairess, but the funds were never forthcoming. On August 6, 1953, in Hartford Hospital, Kate underwent surgery for the removal of a number of skin cancers, thought to be the result of too much sun while filming The African Queen. She recuperated at Fenwick. Next, she gave one of her finest performances in David Lean’s Summer Madness (1955), about Jane Hudson, a lonely American spinster secretary, who finds romance with Renato di Rossi (Rossano Brazzi) in Venice. The film resulted in yet another nomination for an Academy Award. From May 2 until November 2, 1955, she toured Australia with the Old Vic company (including the homosexual Bobby Helpmann), playing Portia in The Merchant Of Venice, Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing, Katherine in The Taming Of The Shrew and Isabella in Measure For Measure. In both Sydney and Melbourne the mayors announced, “I am delighted to welcome Mr Hepburn and Miss Helpmann to our fair city.” Two years later, on July 10, 1957, she returned to Shakespeare, again appearing as Portia and Beatrice, this time at Stratford, Connecticut, where she also performed on June 3, 1960 as Viola in Twelfth Night, and then on July 22 as Cleopatra. On the screen, meanwhile, Hepburn had made an appalling comedy, The Iron Petticoat (released in July 1956), with Bob Hope, written by Ben Hecht (although he asked for his name to be removed from the final credits) and directed by Ralph Thomas. It was filmed at Pinewood Studios and Kate played Captain Vinka Kovelenko, a Russian air force officer assigned to an American base in Germany. Nor was The Rainmaker (1956), in which she was Lizzie Curry, a confirmed spinster, who discovers love at the last gasp through the good offices of Starbuck (Burt Lancaster), very good yet she was nominated for an Academy Award. Although she eschewed motherhood in real life, Kate began to play mothers in reel life. She was Violet Venable in a version of Tennessee Williams’ Suddenly Last Summer (opened December 22, 1959) for which she was nominated for an Academy Award. It was not a happy experience. She fell out badly with director Joseph L. Mankiewicz and at the end of filming spat in his face in front of an astonished cast and crew. She repeated the action in the face of producer Sam Spiegel. In Sidney Lumet’s version of Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night (1962) in which she starred as Mary Tyrone alongside Ralph Richardson (Jason Robards and Dean Stockwell played her sons) she received yet another Oscar nomination. In The Lion In Winter (1968) she played Eleanor of Aquitaine and co-starred with Peter O’Toole (King Henry II), Anthony Hopkins (as King Richard the Lionheart) and Timothy Dalton (King Philip). O’Toole remembered, “Meeting Kate was the greatest experience of my life. I had first met her in London when I was in The Long And The Short And The Tall, and I was pissing in the sink, because someone was using the toilet, when she walked into my dressing room. I heard her say, ‘I’m Kate Hepburn.’ I pretended I was washing my hands and arranged my clothes hastily.” All these performances received critical accolades; for the last of them Hepburn won her third Oscar. She showed no inclination to rest on her laurels. Bryan Forbes’ The Madwoman Of Chaillot (1969) which was filmed in the South of France and The Trojan Women (in which she played Hecuba) (1971) proved unsuitable for the screen. The musical Coco, in which she starred from December 18, 1969, proved unsuitable for Broadway. Kate’s final performance was on August 1, 1970. The film of Edward Albee’s Delicate Balance (1975), with Paul Scofield, Joseph Cotten and Lee Remick, though well intentioned and well acted, was not for a mass market. Rooster Cogburn (1975) was a sequel to True Grit, the Western which had won its star John Wayne his only Oscar. Filmed in Oregon in the autumn of 1974, Kate played a Bible-thumping spinster who learns to use a rifle against outlaws. On April 2, 1974, Kate made her first appearance at the Oscars to present the Irving Thalberg Award to her friend the producer Lawrence Weingarten. Wearing a black Mao suit, Kate received a standing ovation at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Kate appeared as Miss Pudd in the awful Olly Olly Oxen Free (1978). On Golden Pond (1981), a study of old age and family relationships, gave Hepburn as Ethel Thayer her first success in films for 13 years. She bestowed warmth and humanity as the wife of a grouchy Henry Fonda, who also won an Oscar. “You don’t have to act old when you’re our age,” she reflected. As a gift she gave Fonda one of Spencer Tracy’s hats and he painted a picture of it which he gave to Kate. The film would have made a fitting end to Kate’s career but she insisted on making the disastrous Grace Quigley (1984), with Nick Nolte, about an old woman so sold on euthanasia that she hires a hit man to murder her. And she continued to appear on television, in Mrs Delafield Wants To Marry (1986) and Penthouse Paradise (1989). Her final screen appearance was a cameo part as Warren Beatty’s aunt in Love Affair (1994). Katharine Hepburn mostly lived in a magnificent four-storey New York brownstone house at 244 East 49th Street that she had bought in 1937 for $33,000. In the winter of 1974–75 she fell out with her neighbour, the homosexual composer Stephen Sondheim, whose late-night piano playing annoyed her. After he had written one song late at night for the musical Company (it was usually said to be ‘The Ladies W
ho Lunch’, but according to one probably apocryphal version of the story, it was ‘You Could Drive A Person Crazy’), Sondheim and his young male guest looked out of a window to see Kate glaring malevolently back at them. The composer went out the next day and bought an electric piano and headphones. In 1996 she moved permanently to Connecticut. “Life’s what’s important,” she was wont to say. “Walking, houses, family. Birth, pain and joy – and then death. Acting’s just waiting for the custard pie.” Her New England upbringing left her dissatisfied with her lot. “I could have accomplished three times what I’ve accomplished. I haven’t realised my full potential. It’s disgusting.”