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Volume 4
Issue # 3
August 5, 2003
"Kate Remembered as never before"
By Guest Commentator Joseph Planta
VANCOUVER - Days after the death of Katharine Hepburn, word began filtering
through the publishing and entertainment worlds that Putnam would be soon
rushing to print, what was described then, as a memoir of Hepburn's final
years, which would also contain anecdotes heretofore deemed unpublishable
by Hepburn herself, until her death. It was therefore most surprising that
this book, which author A. Scott Berg had been working on for years, was
able to be kept under wraps for so long. Word has it that barely a handful
of staffers and editors at Putnam knew of the book's existence. Less than
two weeks after Hepburn's death, Kate Remembered was released. It
has quickly become a bestseller, finally knocking off Hillary Clinton's
5-week reign as the New York Times's number one bestseller. And all,
no thanks to Oprah or Don Imus.
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Berg, a biographer of some note (he
won a Pulitzer Prize for his study of Charles Lindbergh), spent nearly 20
years as a close friend and confidante to the four-time Academy Award winning
actress. He came to know Hepburn during a visit to her Manhattan apartment
for an interview for a feature in Esquire magazine. Soon enough,
the feature fell through but Berg and Hepburn fell in for each other and
she entrusted Berg with her reflections and recollections on her life, over
many a dinner and double scotch's, always neat. He promised he would publish
those in a book upon her death.
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Katharine is all smiles. |
It's not as if Hepburn was a total
enigma. Unlike Greta Garbo or Marlene Dietrich, she kept on working well
into her late '80s. Her film career spanned seven decades and she also published
her own memoir just over a decade ago entitled, Me: Stories of My Life.
It too quickly became a bestseller, and like so many of her film roles before,
it enshrined her place amongst filmdom's most visible icons. Interestingly
enough, she was a film legend with perhaps one of the lowest of profiles.
She detested pretension and the spotlight, almost always refusing to do
publicity for her films or attending their premieres. As mentioned previously,
she was the Academy Awards's most honoured performer, yet she never attended
any of the Oscar ceremonies in which she was nominated (12 times).
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There have been many books written
about Katharine Hepburn. Whether biographies, or memoirs, or critical studies
of the woman's work, there is probably no one else, with the exception of
Marilyn Monroe or John Wayne, whose life has warranted such attention. Kate
Remembered, because of its proximity to Hepburn's death, is a great
addition to that collection of literature already written on the actress.
It is also a welcome addition, because there are many insights that have
heretofore been unknown. Berg got great access to Hepburn, and even got
to see her a couple of months ago. He got her at her most introspective
and at her most revealing, as he began seeing her just after she nearly
cheated death in a near fatal car crash in the early 1980s. Hepburn began
opening up more and more, and it was Berg who was taking down the notes.
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In Kate Remembered you don't
get a straight up biography of Katharine Hepburn. What makes this book special
is that you've got that narration, married in between Berg's own experiences
with the actress. You have a memoir of Berg's, essentially infused and interspersed
with Hepburn's often revealing and definitely candid confessions. Everything
from her love of Spencer Tracy to his love of imbuing booze, to her love
of the outdoors, her affair with Howard Hughes, adventure, and why she never
bothered to accept her Oscars.
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A. Scott Berg, Author |
Howard Hughes, easily one of the 20th
century's more eccentric and innovative characters was a lover of Hepburn's,
and it was Hughes who, as a gift, purchased the screen rights to The
Philadelphia Story, which single handily resurrected her flagging film
career in 1941. And why didn't she accept her Oscars? Well, selfishness
could be the main reason. She had this fear of losing and one would surmise
that she wouldn't have enjoyed sitting in the audience had her name not
been called. One detects regret in her saying that she should have gone
to her business's biggest night, she of course being one in its employ.
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Spencer Tracy with Kate
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When the book came out less than
a month ago, the media focussed on the anecdote that a drunken Spencer Tracy
had struck her once in a drunken stupor. She and Tracy never married, as
he was a Catholic and his wife had refused to grant him a divorce. Hepburn
never considered leaving him, choosing to stay, because if they had broken
up, they'd have been both inconsolable with misery. What I did find most
interesting about this highly readable tome is how profoundly affected Hepburn
was upon the death of her brother, when both were in their early teens.
His accidental death by hanging would affect Hepburn well into her old age.
As well, her marriage, early in her life, which is dissected and uncovered
for meaning, makes for interesting reading.
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What is also interesting is Berg's
discussion of Hepburn's relationship with her long time secretary. It wasn't
an Alice B. Toklas-Gertrude Lawrence type relationship, but it was one of
great affection and closeness. Phyllis Wilbourn had worked for Hepburn as
her secretary for nearly 50 years. Eventually she became a caregiver to
Hepburn, and vice versa, as Phyllis was actually older than Hepburn. As
they both grew older together, Hepburn would go on to regard her as family,
as did the rest of the Hepburn clan up in the family home of Fenwick, on
the eastern seaboard. (One can read more about Phyllis and Kate in James
Prideaux's book, Knowing Hepburn and Other Curious Experiences.)
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I really enjoyed Kate Remembered.
It's a well-written book, by an accomplished author, about a remarkable
person, both on and off the screen. The way it is written lends for a distinct
flavour that makes it as much a biography as it is a memoir, as it is a
colourful show business schmooze fest. Rather than, as some books do, read
rather awkwardly in an effort to infuse all elements of writing, this book
does just that, yet does so rather flawlessly. Detail about Hepburn's life
isn't exhaustive, which it shouldn't be in this book, because you may choose
to delve into a more biographical book later. Berg's purpose is to allow
us into a side of Hepburn we haven't seen or couldn't understand. Like the
great lady herself, it's damn near-perfect and most remarkable. It makes
for satisfying reading.
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A colourful Katharine |
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It isn't just for film fans or Hepburn afficionados. Fans of the memoir
genre will want to read this, for its unique marriage of elements of storytelling,
biography, remembering and narration. If you're looking for a good read,
or just a good book about a life that lives up to the superlatives and
hyperbole we've heard when the lady was alive, and since her death, this
is it. It is highly recommended, and it would be folly to pass it up.
Kate Remembered by A. Scott Berg is published by Putnam, and is
$38.00.
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