06-30-03 -
By Lisa Sarrach
Yesterday America lost one of our best and
most treasured actors, Ms. Katharine Hepburn. Ms. Hepburn died at 96 in
her home in Connecticut surrounded by friends and family.
Throughout her career which spanned over 6
decades, Katharine Hepburn was nominated for 12 Academy Awards and won 4 for her
roles in Morning Glory (1933), Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967), The Lion in
Winter (1968) and On Golden Pond (1981).
Fiercely independent, she bucked the Hollywood
studio system when they wanted to place her in a film she found wholly
undesirable. She bought out her contract with RKO, went back East and
starred in a play, The Philadelphia Story that was written with her in
mind. Ms. Hepburn loved it so much and her role in it, she insisted that
she be able to buy the film rights as a condition to appear in the play.
After a smash run on Broadway, she brought the script to MGM. Owning the
rights afforded her the ability to cast the movie with her picks, Cary Grant and
Jimmy Stewart. The film was nominated for six Oscars in 1940 and won for
Best Actor, Jimmy Stewart and Best Screenplay, Donald Ogden Stewart.
Controversial, ahead of her time, and
unflinchingly honest, she always exhibited class, humor, grace and loyalty to
those close to her. She was also intensely private.
While there are those who will always
disapprove of her 25 year love affair with a married man, Spencer Tracey, he was
the love of her life. For their own individual reasons, marriage was not
an option, he could not or would not get a divorce, often citing his deaf son as
the reason, not the often reported reason that he was a Catholic. Ms.
Hepburn having one divorce behind her often stated that marriage and show
business didn't mix and that the institution didn't suit her.
For five years in the 1960's Mr. Hepburn did
not work, choosing instead to care for the ill Tracey. Ms. Hepburn did not
attend Spencer Tracey's funeral, even though he died in her presence. She
grieved privately. It would be years after his death that word of their 25
year long affair would become public.
As a life long movie fan, I will always
remember one of the last scenes in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner as the
quintessential, Spencer and Tracey moment:
The characters, Matt and Cristina Drayton have
one day to decide how they feel about their daughter, Joanna, marrying a black
man, Dr. Wade Prentice, played by Sidney Poitier.
But when Spencer Tracey delivers this
monologue, gravely ill, it's not just about the film's characters, it's about
the two of them and the love they shared for over 25 years --
Matt: Now it became clear
that we had one single day in which to make up our minds as to how we felt
about this whole situation. So what happened? My wife typically enough
decided to simply ignore every practical aspect of the situation, and was
carried in some kind of romantic haze which made her in my view totally
inaccessible to anything in the way of reason.
Now I have not as yet referred to His Reverence, who began by forcing his
way into the situation, and insulted my intelligence by mouthing 300
platitudes and ending just a half hour ago by coming up to my room and
challenging me to a wrestling match.
Now, Mr. Prentice, clearly a most reasonable man, says he has no wish to
offend me, but wants to know if I'm some kind of a nut. And Mrs.
Prentice says, that like her husband, that I'm a burnt out old shell of a
man, who cannot even remember what its like to love a woman the way her
son loves my daughter ... and strange as it seems, that's the first
statement made to me all day with which I'm prepared to take issue. Cause
I think you're wrong. You're as wrong as you can be.
I admit that I hadn't considered it, hadn't even thought about it but I
know exactly how he feels about her, and there is nothing, absolutely
nothing, that your son feels for my daughter that I didn't feel for
Christina. Old? Yes. Burnt out? Certainly. But I can tell you the memories
are still there -- clear, intact, indestructible. And they'll be there if
I live to be 110. Where John made his mistake I think was attaching so
much importance to what her mother and I might think. 'Cause in the final
analysis it doesn't matter a damn what we think the only thing that
matters is what they feel, and how much they feel for each other. And if
it's half of what we felt ... that's everything.
Today Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracey are
together again. May they rest in peace.
Hollywood-Hero.us
