Now She Really Is a Goddess
June 30th, 2003 - 12:47 am
My childhood sweetheart died yesterday. Sadly, the news came as no surprise to me, or to anyone else.
Katharine Hepburn was 96.
In the Age Before Cable, we had five TV stations to choose from
I would add to what you said, but you already covered all the reasons I thought she was the best actress of that era, or really IMO of any era. And why she was such a beauty.
Like you said, we all knew it was coming, but it’s still a sad day.
I believe your wife now knows she got you on the rebound.
Did you see that 60 Minutes interview with her a few years back? She went from being a wonderful young woman to being a Great Old Broad, and I mean that in the most complimentary way, as I’m sure you know. Great Old Broad=Absolute National Treasure as far as I’m concerned, and that’s just what she was till the end. France has one of those as well, and she was on TV last night too, if you didn’t know….
My personal favorite is Woman of the Year–which predated, and articulated all the debates about feminism that people assume are new. She played an independent, successful executive who marries (Spencer Tracy) and then abandons the foster child they’ve adopted in order to attend an award ceremony. Tracy refuses to go with her in order to stay home with the child. In the ensuing blowup he says, as she angrily heads off to get her award: “You’re not a woman at all”. So the conflict between the demands of independent business success, and parenthood and femininity are all succinctly presented. She is great because she captures the inner tension as she tries to reconcile the conflicting roles.
She played my all-time favorite literary hero, Jo March, in “Little Women.” After seeing her in that role I couldn’t help but believe that Louisa May Alcott looked and talked just like her.
Heroine. I meant heroine.
“The calla lillies are in bloom again.”
Stage Door? W/Ginger, Lucy, Eve, Kate and others too numerous to mention, if I remember correctly.
But the best scene (IMHO) in Philadelphia Story is Grant & Stewart when Stewart is drunk. Watch Cary and his hands, not Jimmy. I do not know how they could not laugh. “Oh, C. K. Dexter Haven!”
And if you want a really old Jimmy and Penny Singleton (Blondie) w/Myrna Loy and William Powell, I think it’s The Thin Man #4.
A Lion in Winter, a must not miss. And Bringing Up Baby.
Well, we’ll see how PEOPLE rates Katherine, cover or no.
No one’s left and the current crop can’t hold a candle, much less be in the same room. They acted, weren’t background for special effects.
“No one’s left and the current crop can’t hold a candle, much less be in the same room. They acted, weren’t background for special effects.”
You said it, Sandy. And might I add that in the old movies, their romantic scenes were sexier than the ones today, in spite of the fact (or more probably because if it) that they kept their clothes on!
The passing of an era.
The two most beautiful women in Hollywood are dead. Dear Audrey died a few years ago, and now beautiful Katherine.
Will we ever see their like again?
Your post names all so great, I’ll steal it.
“No one’s left and the current crop can’t hold a candle, much less be in the same room. They acted, weren’t background for special effects.”
The current crop of young actresses is quite disappointing. But do you think that if Hollywood started writing roles for talented older women again, instead of only wanting to cast talentless eye candy opposite men old enough to be their grandfathers, the situation might change?
I can’t be the only 30-something woman in America who’d pay to see Kathleen Turner steam up the screen again like she did in Body Heat. “Like a fine wine, you don’t get older, you just get better.” — Sapphire (“The Uppity Blues Women”)
My two favorite actresses were Kate and Audrey Hepburn. Kate is one of the reasons my first daughter is named Katherine. (Though to quote one acquaintance on hearing that our daughter was a Katie, “They’re awfully willful, aren’t they?”) If she grows up to be half what Kate Hepburn was, I’ll feel I did a good job raising her.
One of my all-time fav Kate Hepburn movies is Holiday, w/Cary Grant, Edward Everett Horton and some other great folks. I believe it was originally a stage play written for Kate and then made into a movie. Some great acrobatics and some wonderful adlibs are thrown in. And as for the movies with Spence, surely Adam’s Rib has to be at or near the top.
Fare-WELL, Amanda! Adios, Adio, Adieux!
There’s a really great movie Katherine Hepburn made after the Lion in Winter–Euripides “Trojan Women” scripted in Edith Hamilton’s translation. I could go on and on. Instead, I’ll quote Joe Bob Briggs: Check it out!
Can’t really agree, RV. Kate, Bette, Ginger, Maureen, Myrna did a lot of good and enjoyable/lite stuff when they were young. The real problem isn’t the part, it’s the writers. They have no concept. One of the best comparisons I can make is watch Barefoot in the Park w/Fonda/Redford and Mildred Natwick. Natwick’s character was supposed to be 52(?) Compare the stereotype 52 y.o. in the late 60s and Cher.
Meg Ryan might be one of the few who can have a long career. Sigorney, she’ll be wonderful as the rich matriarch. Sarandon, I won’t watch, except for certain parts of Rocky Horror. Streep will still get the good parts. There’s no depth. I think I’d rather be Mary Wickes, at least I’d work until I died, she voiced one of the gargoyles in Disney’s Hunchback.
They shone even then.
I see Charlie’s T&A redux didn’t pull in as much as hoped.
My first wild thought after seeing Ms Hepburn in “The Lion in Winter”: “My God, they could say that back then?!?!?!?!” Some of the dialogue pushed the censor envelope as much as the “bathing scene” in Spartacus did (y’all know which one I mean). And “Lion” kept said dialogue up for a couple of hours, too.
She will always be a very impressive lady.
She really *was* a lady — thanks for pointing that out.