IN MEMORIAM
AT REEL CLASSIC
Photos from L to R: #1. Bringing Up Baby (1938). #2. The Philadelphia
Story (1940)
One of the
silver screen's most unique and enduring personalities, onscreen and off,
Katharine Hepburn's career as a leading lady spanned seven decades, over fifty
quality films (running the gamut from screwball comedies and romances to high
drama), a record twelve Oscar nominations and four gold statuettes. She
formed memorable screen partnerships with the likes of Cary Grant, Spencer
Tracy and director George Cukor but outlasted all of them and excelled just as
easily on her own. One of the first stars to take control of her career while
still working within the confines of the studio system, Hepburn's career
suffered its share of ups and downs, but Hollywood learned never to write her
off. After a screen debut performance in George Cukor’s A BILL
OF DIVORCEMENT (1932)
which earned her favorable notices and the attention of Hollywood, Hepburn
joined the ranks of RKO’s highest paid stars and her career took off rapidly.
For her third film,
MORNING GLORY (1933), she won the first of her record four Best
Actress Oscars for her portrayal of Eva Lovelace, an aspiring actress,
opposite Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and Adolphe Menjou. Several dramas soon
followed with varying degrees of success, among them notables like LITTLE
WOMEN (1933) in which she plays Louisa May Alcott's tomboy heroine Jo, and
forgettables like THE LITTLE MINISTER (1934) and BREAK OF HEARTS (1935), both
of which failed at the box office.
Photo: A
publicity
portrait of Kate and Cary for their second screwball comedy of 1938, George
Cukor’s HOLIDAY, a comedic love story between two free-thinking social
outcasts.
After proving
her dramatic merit in a series of melodramas for RKO, Hepburn launched into
romantic comedies, beginning with George Stevens’ ALICE ADAMS (1935), based on
the novel by Booth Tarkington. Featuring Hepburn as a wallflower from a poor
family with high social and romantic aspirations, the film co-starred Fred
MacMurray. In 1937, Hepburn faced off against fellow RKO contract player
Ginger Rogers in STAGE DOOR, the screen adaptation of Edna Ferber and George
F. Kauffman's play about a boarding house of aspiring actress who match wits
to mask their fears and disappointments. It is in STAGE DOOR that Hepburn
delivers her famous line about the calla lilies. Beginning
in 1935 with SYLVIA SCARLETT, Hepburn teamed with the haplessly frazzled yet
debonair comedian Cary Grant in a series of screwball comedies which have
stood the test of time to become the most popular films of her early career.
In Howar Hawks’ BRINGING UP BABY (1938), Kate and Cary run around Connecticut
in evening clothes with nets and ropes trying to catch a leopard and recover a
missing dinosaur bone.
Unfortunately, despite the
success of these comedies, Hepburn was labeled "box-office poison" by a group
of independent exhibitors in 1937, and fearing the label marked the end of her
film career, she bought out the remainder of her RKO contract and returned to
New York to resume her acting career Broadway.
Continues
on the following pages