Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00:00 [no audio]
00:00:15 [music]
00:00:25 [music]
00:00:52 [music]
00:01:05 [music]
00:01:34 [music]
00:01:55 [music]
00:02:17 [music]
00:02:28 [music]
00:02:41 [music]
00:02:58 [music]
00:03:19 [music]
00:03:48 [music]
00:04:01 [music]
00:04:30 [music]
00:04:59 [music]
00:05:10 [music]
00:05:39 [music]
00:05:48 [music]
00:06:17 [music]
00:06:25 [music]
00:06:54 [music]
00:07:13 [music]
00:07:38 All us children were incredibly close, but Tom, Dick and I were inseparable.
00:07:44 [music]
00:07:49 [music]
00:08:01 [music]
00:08:11 [music]
00:08:25 Excuse me, I just want to turn this over.
00:08:32 We were in New York visiting our aunt.
00:08:39 We went out to see a play one evening and when we came back, Tom, who was 16 at the time,
00:08:46 came to me before bed and told me how much he loved me.
00:08:50 I didn't think anything of it.
00:08:54 The following morning, when I went to his room to fetch him for breakfast,
00:08:58 I found him hanging.
00:09:01 Dead.
00:09:03 I took him down and lay his cold body on the bed.
00:09:10 I felt detached from everything that was happening around me.
00:09:15 I was devastated.
00:09:21 The hardest part about it all was that we weren't only told to not talk about Tom,
00:09:26 we had to pretend that he was not ever part of our family,
00:09:30 to act as if he'd never lived.
00:09:33 This was how our father managed the family's grief,
00:09:37 to pretend it never happened.
00:09:40 [music]
00:09:46 We were an amazing, bright, capable, cohesive family.
00:09:51 But her father came from a different era.
00:09:57 [silence]
00:10:21 The reality of what happened in the Hepburn household
00:10:24 was that everybody was horrified and quiet.
00:10:27 Dr. Hepburn loved his children, wanted to be a good father,
00:10:33 but he was really tough on his kids in an idealistic way,
00:10:40 but by today's standards, really harsh, probably abusive.
00:10:44 [water running]
00:10:46 You have to heat it slowly, or else it'll pop.
00:10:50 [water running]
00:10:51 I remember my mother talking about Tom's death,
00:10:56 and my mother said, "Well, they told the newspapers it was an accident.
00:11:03 He had been to the circus a few days before and watched a hanging thing
00:11:08 where there was a fake way to hang yourself and appear as though you were hanging."
00:11:13 But then, that's what my mother said when I was young,
00:11:18 and as time passed, I asked my father about it,
00:11:21 and that's when he said he remembered his father sitting in the chair in the front hall,
00:11:25 the straight back chair, with his head in his hands, going, "Why did he do it? Why did he do it?"
00:11:29 And my father said, "Well," to himself, my father said,
00:11:34 "Well, you big ass, it's because you were so mean to him."
00:11:37 [water running]
00:11:39 Dr. Hepburn was, on some level, aware of his contribution,
00:11:45 and to have his eldest son die of his own hand was deeply troubling
00:11:50 and obviously horribly painful.
00:11:53 Our family had a lot of troubles.
00:11:58 Kate's mother's father committed suicide.
00:12:01 Dr. Hepburn's older brothers died under suspicious conditions,
00:12:06 but it was considered in bad taste to go around with her tragedy evident.
00:12:13 So, his way of being strong was to go, "Well, it's a nice day. We've got work to do. Let's go."
00:12:22 [silence]
00:12:26 Our father moved us to a new neighborhood to try and help us all move on with our lives.
00:12:30 "A fresh start," he said, "but Tom's death seemed to separate Kate from the outside world.
00:12:36 She became more introverted and withdrawn, like Tom was,
00:12:41 sinking into a deeper kind of depression.
00:12:43 She told me she'd made a promise that she would never forget him
00:12:46 and would live her life secretly for the both of them.
00:12:49 She started getting anxiety attacks, which made her sick.
00:12:53 She found it hard being around the other kids at school,
00:12:56 so our parents let her be homeschooled.
00:12:58 Dad thought if they kept her busy, it would help,
00:13:01 but she started withdrawing into herself.
00:13:04 They eventually became so worried, they made her go back to school."
00:13:10 I hated college. I wasn't used to the discipline, the regular hours and classes.
00:13:15 I started getting into trouble for smoking and breaking into houses.
00:13:19 Anyway, after about two years, they called in my parents and practically asked me to leave.
00:13:25 One night, soon after, I decided that's it.
00:13:29 I'd pull myself together, get on with life, but also do what I wanted.
00:13:36 In my junior year, I won a role in the school play.
00:13:40 Nerves, fear, applause.
00:13:44 I finally felt fascinating.
00:13:47 It was right there and then I decided to be an actress.
00:13:51 Dad always felt that if a girl went into theater,
00:13:56 it was as though she had announced that she was going to be a prostitute
00:14:02 and that she could not get anywhere or any good jobs unless she slept with the director.
00:14:08 When I told my parents I was moving to New York, Dad hit the roof.
00:14:14 But Mom was just glad to see me do something other than what was expected of women.
00:14:19 She was a true feminist and just told me to do what I wanted.
00:14:23 So I went.
00:14:25 I had started out as an understudy,
00:14:30 and I was always a pretty good flash actor.
00:14:32 I could read a part without knowing what I was doing,
00:14:36 and I could always get the part, never could keep it,
00:14:39 because I would get so excited that my voice would shoot way up in the top of my head,
00:14:43 and I would get red in the face, talk too fast, and couldn't act.
00:14:47 And they were all sitting out there, just petrified me.
00:14:50 So I wrote Dad and said, "Would you back me in lessons?"
00:14:54 He wrote me and said he was winning bets on the golf course,
00:14:59 and he said that that was bad money, so he'd send it to me.
00:15:02 The first real friend I made there was Laura Harding.
00:15:13 I met her through my acting coach, Robinson Duff.
00:15:16 She was part of New York's high society and heir to the American Express fortune.
00:15:21 She knew all the highbrow customs of the time
00:15:24 and introduced me to her circle of friends in the theater world.
00:15:28 Then Luddy, my old friend from back home, moved to New York,
00:15:31 and in no time at all, he'd become part of our gang.
00:15:35 He was my beau, too, from then on, and he was a real sweetheart.
00:15:40 He made it his mission to do everything he could to make me a star.
00:15:44 He paid for lessons, drove me to rehearsals, and helped me film my auditions.
00:15:49 Kate was landing understudy roles in some great plays, but she kept getting fired.
00:15:57 She finally had the chance to step into the leading role,
00:16:00 and after delivering an amusing line where the audience exploded with laughter,
00:16:04 her overconfidence found its way in.
00:16:07 Her voice rose to a high pitch, and she spoke so quickly
00:16:10 that no one could even understand her through the remainder of the performance.
00:16:13 So she was fired.
00:16:16 After about a year of knockbacks, getting dropped from shows,
00:16:20 and with only understudy roles, I was just about ready to give up.
00:16:25 Sensing my sinking mood, Luddy proposed to me, and I thought, you know, why not?
00:16:31 We had a simple wedding, and I even convinced him
00:16:35 to bring our friends Jack and Laura on our honeymoon.
00:16:38 Kate wanted to do all the normal things, like have a life and have children and have a mate,
00:16:46 but when she really tried to do that with Luddy,
00:16:52 she realized that she was different, that her enormous energy would drive her insane very quickly,
00:17:00 and within two weeks, she needed to move back to New York and continue her efforts.
00:17:06 And he, for his part, understood that he had married a madwoman with ten times the energy,
00:17:14 and so he packed up and moved with her, throwing his own life aside
00:17:20 and just going, "Whatever you want, Kate, let's do it. I love you. I'm going to help."
00:17:46 Kate had understudied for Hope Williams in several New York productions,
00:17:50 and she studied Hope's style and persona from the wings each night.
00:17:54 Her masculine dress sense and what Kate would call the half-boy, half-woman persona.
00:18:00 Like a chameleon, Kate adapted some of these mannerisms.
00:18:04 So when Hope abandons the Warrior's Husband production,
00:18:08 Kate's given the lead role a chance, and she channeled everything that she had practiced.
00:18:13 The play was a huge success and catapulted her into the public's eye.
00:18:16 I was finally starting to get the recognition I had craved.
00:18:21 My career skyrocketed. My headshot was sent to L.A.,
00:18:25 and I was asked to go out to test for a part in a film called A Bill of Divorcement,
00:18:30 to be directed by George Cukor and starring John Barrymore.
00:18:34 I got a train with Laura, and we both arrived in L.A. in a hot, sweaty mess.
00:18:40 I don't think the head of RKO, David Selznick, was very impressed when he picked us up from the station.
00:18:45 Every actor in America had gone up for this part,
00:18:57 and I knew George would have seen hundreds of tests, so I decided to do something different.
00:19:02 A scene from Holiday.
00:19:04 I'd understudied Hope and watched her play that scene night after night,
00:19:09 and I'd seen a lot of her into my performance.
00:19:11 I knew I'd made an impression.
00:19:13 John Barrymore came straight to see me after they watched it to tell me what he thought.
00:19:17 I was going to be a star.
00:19:20 A few days later, the call came in.
00:19:24 Laura was to play the supporting role, and I was given the leading part in my first-ever picture.
00:19:30 Laura and I decided to move to Hollywood, and that was the beginning of the end for me and Luddy.
00:19:38 [TRAFFIC NOISES]
00:19:42 [ALARM BEEPING]
00:19:49 Then shooting started on a bill of divorcement, and the first shot was a party scene.
00:19:56 In a beautiful chiffon dress, I came floating down the stairs and into the arms of David Manners.
00:20:05 In her very first film, she played John Barrymore's daughter in a creaky melodrama called A Bill of Divorcement.
00:20:11 She was 24, making her film debut, he was 50, a long-established star.
00:20:17 He was one of the famous Hamlets of his generation.
00:20:20 He was also an infamous alcoholic, a womanizer, and like other powerful men in Hollywood,
00:20:26 he used to getting exactly what he wanted.
00:20:30 He asked me to come to his dressing room on the block one day, I went, and there he was, lying on his couch,
00:20:36 in a, what shall I say, comparative disarray.
00:20:39 There was a pause, a quick shuffle of the blankets.
00:20:42 "Oh, oh, I'm sorry, see you later," he said.
00:20:46 I went. "Oh, my, how very strange."
00:20:51 "I'll make it up to you."
00:20:53 Anyway, he was an angel after that.
00:20:56 The main object really seemed to be absolutely certain that I made a big hit.
00:21:01 He held my face to the camera in our many scenes together.
00:21:05 What's that?
00:21:09 Nothing.
00:21:13 After working on A Bill of Divorcement, Kate and Laura became part of George Cukor's close circle.
00:21:24 Attending his parties, making friends in the industry.
00:21:26 Kate said that George would always sit her next to people that could help her in her career.
00:21:31 But no one in Hollywood knew she was married.
00:21:33 She was courting several big players in the industry, including her agent Leland Hayward,
00:21:37 who taught her the ins and outs of negotiating with the studios.
00:21:41 She was anything but a big star.
00:21:44 But she treated herself like a star in the negotiations.
00:21:49 She wouldn't sign a term contract, and her agent Leland Hayward wouldn't let her.
00:21:54 So she signed a contract that gave her a very big salary, $1,500 a week.
00:21:59 One day, I was hanging out between meetings in Pandro's office,
00:22:04 and I spotted the script for Morning Glory on his desk.
00:22:08 I started to flick through it. It was incredible.
00:22:11 I called Laura and told her to drive over.
00:22:14 We read the script together, and she was as convinced as I that no matter what,
00:22:18 I had to play the lead.
00:22:20 Leland told me they'd already cast it, but I said, "No, it's for me."
00:22:25 Well, he went off and managed to get me the part.
00:22:29 In 1933, she stars in Morning Glory, and Kate was perfect for the role.
00:22:38 A small-town actress who arrives in New York, hungry for stardom.
00:22:42 And in this performance, you really see Kate trying to prove to the world
00:22:46 that she could be a serious actress.
00:22:48 And all of you be quiet. Be quiet.
00:22:51 Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou come?
00:22:59 Deny thy father, and refuse thy name.
00:23:13 As the Katherine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center, affectionately known as the Kate,
00:23:16 the most significant contribution to our collection was in February 2020,
00:23:21 when Miss Hepburn's grandniece, Skylar Grant, gave to us several boxes of items
00:23:25 that had been at the Grant home in Fenwick.
00:23:28 To our delight, we opened the boxes and found dozens of letters
00:23:33 that Miss Hepburn had written to her family, as well as some wonderful photos.
00:23:37 I felt like her voice was in my head after a little while of transcribing letters.
00:23:43 This is a very typical letter that she would have written home to her mother.
00:23:47 This is from July of 1933.
00:23:50 Morning Glory is about to open.
00:23:53 And, you know, she's talking in this letter about, "I hope people will like it.
00:23:57 I hope, again, it's well-received."
00:23:59 And Morning Glory becomes her first Academy Award.
00:24:02 The first week or two that I was in Hollywood, I got all my money and cash,
00:24:06 and I put it in a barrel drawer, and I spent it all.
00:24:10 And Dad said, "Where's the money? We'd better put it in the bank."
00:24:12 And I said, "It's gone."
00:24:14 So he said, "You better have them send it to me."
00:24:16 So until the day he died, he took my money and sent me an allowance.
00:24:22 The press started calling Laura "my other half,"
00:24:28 because when things kicked off, she helped take over every aspect of my life,
00:24:32 becoming my wardrobe designer, press agent,
00:24:35 and even negotiating with the producers and directors,
00:24:39 putting her career on hold to look after mine.
00:24:42 Kate was off to a flying start making back-to-back films.
00:24:50 Bill of Divorcement is a hit.
00:24:52 She's immediately offered a part in Christopher Strong.
00:24:55 Then she makes Morning Glory, which, as we all know, is a hit.
00:24:58 And then Little Women, but in one of the letters in our collection,
00:25:02 she writes to her mother, "I'm not decided yet on Little Women,
00:25:05 so I'm stalling about as long as possible."
00:25:08 It's going to be a long production.
00:25:10 It means she may have to give up theatrical roles in New York
00:25:13 if she decides to make the film.
00:25:15 It was never cut-and-dry decision-making,
00:25:17 but Little Women became the most commercially successful film that Kate made.
00:25:21 And the money she earned, still managed by her father,
00:25:24 allowed her to rent increasingly extravagant places.
00:25:34 "Dear Brimsel, your house stands beyond my wildest imagination.
00:25:38 I beg to see it, and I'm wildly jealous of that cat Pollux.
00:25:42 I wish you were here, or I with you.
00:25:45 I dare not think of what I'm missing."
00:25:48 There's a break where she goes back to the stage,
00:25:56 and she makes The Lake.
00:25:58 This is not a success.
00:26:02 She actually has to buy her way out of this contract,
00:26:04 so that she doesn't have to continue performing
00:26:07 in this production that is going nowhere.
00:26:10 She gives the producer every last cent that she had in her checking account
00:26:14 in order to get out of that contract and get back to Hollywood.
00:26:19 "That was a very, very difficult thing for me to deal with.
00:26:22 From the feet, I learned you have to know a little bit what you're doing.
00:26:28 And you can't move on saying, 'I don't want to go this way, I'm going this way,'
00:26:34 because you're pushing me.
00:26:36 Don't do that.
00:26:38 There's one person to blame, and that is you."
00:26:42 "Every girl has a time in her life when she's positive, she's divine,
00:26:47 she's divinely talented for the stage."
00:26:49 After The Lake, it's Miss, Miss, Miss, Miss, unfortunately.
00:26:53 Spitfire.
00:26:55 The Little Minister.
00:27:01 Break of Hearts.
00:27:06 And then Sylvia Scarlet.
00:27:15 But what a role in Sylvia Scarlet.
00:27:18 She portrays a young woman masquerading as a young man
00:27:23 so that she can travel with her father, and the transformation is amazing.
00:27:28 "Oh, I say, that's marvelous."
00:27:30 "I say, I wonder what it'd be like to kiss anybody with a moustache like that."
00:27:34 "I don't know." "Let's try."
00:27:36 That was a movie that was very controversial,
00:27:38 and unfortunately I don't think a lot of people understood the premise of the film,
00:27:42 and so that was a miss.
00:27:44 "Michael! Michael!"
00:27:47 They filmed a lot of the scenes outdoors and on the beach.
00:27:50 And that's where she meets Howard Hughes for the first time.
00:27:53 Howard was an inventor, a businessman, a film producer,
00:27:57 and he was a friend of Cary Grant's.
00:27:59 He wants to meet her, so he flies in,
00:28:03 and she thought it was so obtrusive, how dare he.
00:28:11 "My relationship with Leland felt like it was getting serious,
00:28:14 and I felt awful for stringing Luddy along.
00:28:17 I knew it was time to let him go.
00:28:20 Poor Luddy. He had done everything to help me get to where I was.
00:28:24 I took his money, used his car, then broke his heart."
00:28:29 She was always friends with Luddy,
00:28:32 and I get the feeling, ultimately, honest with him,
00:28:36 probably after being found out or something like that.
00:28:40 I don't think that she ever worked to deceive.
00:28:43 And as she said, the attitude was,
00:28:46 "I'm going over there. Get out of my way."
00:28:50 This letter was as she was sailing to Mexico for her divorce,
00:29:02 to have it done hush-hush.
00:29:04 And she's of course sailing with her friend Laura.
00:29:09 She tells her mother,
00:29:10 "I hope we do not get bitten by snakes and tarantulas."
00:29:13 And you know, she says here, spoken to no one,
00:29:16 she would always tell her mother, "Don't ever talk to the press."
00:29:18 Even before she was a star.
00:29:20 "Don't talk to anybody."
00:29:22 And it's when Kate returned to Hollywood,
00:29:26 we presume Leland proposed to her.
00:29:28 But by then she had figured out she wasn't marriage material.
00:29:31 After she turned him down, he started to drift away.
00:29:35 Then the story goes, one day while he was away in New York,
00:29:37 she received a telegram out of the blue
00:29:39 saying that he had married another actress.
00:29:41 I was heartbroken and couldn't stop crying.
00:29:48 But mother told me to stop moping and get busy.
00:29:51 So I accepted a theatre role in Boston, playing Jane Eyre.
00:29:55 I saw in the press that Howard was in town.
00:29:58 And I must have been lonely or something,
00:30:01 because I invited him to dinner.
00:30:04 We had dinner every show thereafter.
00:30:06 He moved into the same hotel,
00:30:08 and then he followed us on tour,
00:30:10 conducting his work on the telephone.
00:30:12 After the play finished, we headed back to California together,
00:30:16 and I moved into his house, proving that persistence pays.
00:30:21 Howard Hughes collected women
00:30:24 the way most people collect ornaments.
00:30:27 And he had them scattered around Hollywood,
00:30:31 and he had these young starlets that he promised work to,
00:30:34 and work never, ever came.
00:30:37 And Catherine had quite a long and very deep relationship with him,
00:30:43 and she held her ground.
00:30:46 It sounds like you two had a lot of fun together.
00:30:49 Yes, he was a good golfer, good tennis player.
00:30:51 Flew planes.
00:30:53 Even you flew one.
00:30:55 Under the 59th Street Bridge.
00:30:58 Do you think it was that you liked his adventurousness?
00:31:01 I suppose he opened doors for me.
00:31:04 Were you an opportunist?
00:31:07 I think everyone is an opportunist,
00:31:11 if they have an opportunity to be opportunistic.
00:31:15 Catherine Hepburn scared people, and she frightened people.
00:31:27 She was a threat.
00:31:28 She was Lilith.
00:31:30 She was this thing that was going to come down and sort you out.
00:31:34 And, oh, by the way, guys, she actually didn't need you to live, either.
00:31:38 So, in that arc of time, when we're talking about the middle '30s,
00:31:42 when she had three films in a row that flopped,
00:31:45 there was no mercy.
00:31:48 THE MIDDLE '30S
00:31:51 The '30s killed a lot of careers.
00:32:03 She made a lot of bad movies,
00:32:06 and some movies that are terrific that weren't appreciated at the time,
00:32:10 like "Bringing a Baby."
00:32:12 She said, "I think moviegoers thought I was just too la-dee-da
00:32:16 "and there were a lot of people who just wanted to see me fall flat on my face."
00:32:21 My going rate had nosedived from 150,000 to Paramount offering me just 10,000.
00:32:33 Howard was pressuring me to accept.
00:32:36 He was worried about what people were saying about him.
00:32:39 It was the only offer I had, but I knew it would be the end of my career if I took it.
00:32:45 So I called them back and declined,
00:32:47 then retreated back to Fenwick to figure out my next move.
00:32:51 And then the hurricane came,
00:32:58 and we watched as our family home got swept up and carried down the river.
00:33:03 It was when Howard sent water over in a plane,
00:33:07 but didn't visit, that I knew our relationship was over.
00:33:12 To say that I was feeling sorry for myself was an understatement.
00:33:16 Kate said to Mama, "Oh, I've ruined, I'm done,
00:33:21 "they all are mean to me."
00:33:24 And Mama said to Kate, "You've gotten rich and famous,
00:33:29 "and now you're complaining about it.
00:33:32 "You've been knocked down. Get up."
00:33:36 [birds chirping]
00:33:38 Not long after starting to rebuild our home, the phone rang.
00:33:47 It was an old friend of mine, Philip Barry, the playwright.
00:33:50 He had heard I was back home and wanted to come and pitch me a new idea.
00:33:54 So he joined me for tea and described in great detail a play called The Philadelphia Story.
00:34:00 It was so good, I signed up right away.
00:34:04 Afterwards, I called Howard.
00:34:06 We were still speaking almost every day,
00:34:09 and he told me to act fast and buy the movie rights before the play opened.
00:34:13 So I did, and worked closely with Philip to finish the script.
00:34:17 She's a smart businesswoman.
00:34:21 She is in charge of this image that she presents.
00:34:25 And she has a friend called Philip Barry, and he writes this play,
00:34:29 when she has no movies to make, called Philadelphia Story.
00:34:33 She reads it and says, "Not only am I playing this role,
00:34:36 "I'm investing in the Broadway production, and I'm buying the movie rights."
00:34:40 Which has got to be one of the most brilliant business decisions
00:34:44 any woman in movies ever made, never mind a movie star in movies.
00:34:48 She borrows the money, as I understand it, from Howard Hughes,
00:34:51 but she gets the movie rights. She's a huge hit on Broadway.
00:34:54 Everything is looking good again, and she sells the movie to MGM,
00:34:59 the studio of studios in Hollywood, to Louis B. Mayer.
00:35:02 She can insist on being the star, which is obvious.
00:35:04 She can tell him what director she wants, which is Cukor.
00:35:07 She knew what she wanted exactly,
00:35:10 but she was officially box office poison.
00:35:14 What male was box office poison? I can't think of anybody.
00:35:18 I mean, it was even known that John Barrymore, who was a big star, was a drunk.
00:35:22 He wasn't box office poison as far as the industry was concerned,
00:35:26 but she was box office poison.
00:35:30 So, she's what's called a Yankee,
00:35:33 and I mean it not the way Southerners call people in the North.
00:35:37 She was actually a form of American aristocracy.
00:35:41 It was the Depression, and people are like, "What the? I can't even eat."
00:35:46 And then this voice comes through, so Americans could hear in her voice
00:35:52 that she had money and that she was highly educated.
00:35:56 Would you care to see me do the sleepwalking scene from Macbeth?
00:35:59 No.
00:36:01 Oh, damn it.
00:36:03 Well, the teachers at Miss Porter's school thought it was very promising.
00:36:06 She had to change herself so that she was acceptable to the industry
00:36:11 and acceptable to viewers.
00:36:13 She had to find her heart. She had to find her soul.
00:36:16 She had to come down a peg, and that's why Philadelphia's story,
00:36:19 the beginning of it, is so exquisite.
00:36:22 [Music]
00:36:35 First shot, first shot, first shot.
00:36:37 Before there's no word spoken, Cary Grant pushes her down in the door.
00:36:41 [Music]
00:36:47 That's what guys wanted to do to her.
00:36:50 The minute she opened her mouth, they wanted to take a pie and go, "Shut up," or "Blah."
00:36:54 She thought, "Well, let me just do it." So she did it.
00:36:57 After that, it's like, "Ooh, she's a force to be reckoned with.
00:37:01 She thinks big. She's got brains. Now let's see what's next."
00:37:06 [Music]
00:37:11 My friend Garson sent me a new idea he had had that his brother was working on.
00:37:17 It wasn't finished, but I could already see it had great potential,
00:37:20 and I knew at this point in my career I had to strike while the iron was hot.
00:37:24 I ripped off the front page that had their names on,
00:37:27 and put on a new front page with "Philadelphia Story 2" scribbled on it
00:37:31 with a big question mark before sending it on to Mankiewicz.
00:37:34 I told him if he was interested to get back to me in 24 hours, or I'd go elsewhere.
00:37:40 He told me to head out to L.A. for a meeting with Mayer and himself as soon as I could,
00:37:46 so I caught a stratoliner out straight away.
00:37:48 Mayer, shrewd as hell, used flattery for all it was worth.
00:37:53 Inside, I was nervous, but I held firm and told them what I wanted.
00:37:58 One hundred thousand for the story in script,
00:38:01 one hundred thousand for myself to star in it,
00:38:04 and ten thousand for my commission.
00:38:07 The room went quiet.
00:38:10 They tried to offer me a hundred and seventy-five thousand,
00:38:15 but I refused.
00:38:16 I held my nerve, and when I sensed Mayer might back out,
00:38:21 insisting I tell him who wrote it,
00:38:23 I doubled down even more, telling him I was taking offers only,
00:38:27 and if he was interested, I would send him the finished script over in a couple of days.
00:38:31 Now, knowing there was genuine interest, we locked ourselves away,
00:38:35 bringing Mike and I to work together to finish the script,
00:38:39 delivering it to them a few days later.
00:38:42 [typewriter clacking]
00:38:44 [music]
00:38:49 The purchase of the script for Woman of the Year by Mankiewicz and Mayer
00:38:54 would make it, at that time, a record for an original screenplay,
00:38:58 and they had no idea until after they had signed the contract
00:39:01 that it had been by two novice writers.
00:39:04 Kate wanted Spencer Tracy to play the leading man.
00:39:07 She greatly admired him as a person, as an actor.
00:39:11 She called him an actor's actor.
00:39:13 After she did some digging around and found out that he had a window of availability,
00:39:16 she got him.
00:39:18 Spencer Tracy, he comes into her life through making a movie with her?
00:39:21 Yes, they made Woman of the Year.
00:39:24 And by the way, that story about when they met,
00:39:28 she supposedly said to him, "Well, you're not very tall,"
00:39:32 and he's supposed to have said, "I'll cut you down to my size."
00:39:36 You remember that story?
00:39:38 Is that true?
00:39:40 Kate had to wear three-inch platform shoes to make herself terribly tall.
00:39:43 So she said, "You're not as tall as I thought you were,"
00:39:46 and Joe Mankiewicz said, "Don't worry, Kate. He'll cut you down to his size."
00:39:52 I heard after our meeting that Spence told Garson he found me to be a strange creature.
00:39:58 Apparently, he didn't like that I had a rather ambiguous sexuality,
00:40:02 dirty fingernails, and always wore pants.
00:40:05 I just think he found me rather unattractive and disappointing
00:40:09 and thought, "Oh, my God, what am I stuck with?"
00:40:11 I guess he thought I was a lesbian,
00:40:14 but found out pretty quickly that I had no problems with the opposite sex.
00:40:18 Anyway, he signed up for the film, and after that, in my career,
00:40:21 I'd never again budge on something I believed in.
00:40:25 I love Woman of the Year.
00:40:35 It's, again, a script written for her,
00:40:38 and every cliché of male-female relationships is ironically reversed in this movie.
00:40:44 She's the important woman, having a life of not only independence,
00:40:47 but importance, dealing with world politics at a time of war.
00:40:52 She's this new female ideal.
00:40:56 Spencer Tracy is the sports columnist for the same newspaper where she's the political columnist.
00:41:03 Their chemistry was clearly obvious for everyone to see.
00:41:07 What are you trying to prove? Why am I here?
00:41:09 Well, Sam, I...
00:41:11 After all, you know, a little Nermal could have driven you down here. Why did you ask me?
00:41:14 Thought you might want to kiss me goodbye.
00:41:16 Their first kiss on screen is mostly hidden by the way it's shot,
00:41:20 from behind his head, with his face hidden,
00:41:22 and with his hat brim hiding her face almost completely.
00:41:26 You say that you found the true meaning of love.
00:41:29 Yes. No question that that's true.
00:41:32 How quickly did you fall in love?
00:41:36 I would think almost immediately.
00:41:38 When Woman of the Year was playing at Radio City in 1942,
00:41:43 the gossip columnist Sheila Graham managed to tell her thousands of readers
00:41:47 that Tracy and Hepburn got on like a house of fire,
00:41:51 and the love scenes in the picture are extremely convincing.
00:41:55 What attracted you to Spencer Tracy?
00:42:01 His sense of humor.
00:42:04 A wonderful sense of humor. A remarkable memory.
00:42:07 What attracted me to Spencer Tracy is, what, magic.
00:42:13 It was adultery, of course.
00:42:22 Tracy was married, but had been having affairs for years before Hepburn showed up,
00:42:28 which was an open secret, apparently, in Hollywood,
00:42:32 although not at all bandied about in the press.
00:42:35 Kate was harried by the press,
00:42:45 and she learned very quickly to keep them at arm's length,
00:42:49 and it was a fun game, I think, also,
00:42:53 to be terribly important and don't let anybody know,
00:42:56 and let's sneak over here, and it's a fun game,
00:43:00 to feel wanted, to feel important.
00:43:03 He told you the rumors in the early 30s were, "You must be a lesbian."
00:43:18 Yes.
00:43:20 Because she's so aggressive, and she wears pants,
00:43:23 and in those days you didn't give interviews.
00:43:25 Well, I didn't want to give interviews,
00:43:28 because I thought, "No use talking about something
00:43:30 until you know whether it's any good."
00:43:32 Then when I found out that it was OK,
00:43:34 then I didn't need to talk to anybody.
00:43:37 People were always gossiping about Laura and I.
00:43:43 The director, Mark Sandridge, eventually told me
00:43:46 that he might have been the one responsible for starting this rumor,
00:43:49 after he overheard Laura on the phone at the studio,
00:43:52 trying to get hold of me, referring to herself as my husband.
00:43:57 "Oh, was she a lesbian?" I don't know.
00:43:59 She was probably everything and maybe nothing.
00:44:02 She was whatever you dream her to have been,
00:44:06 because that's the point.
00:44:08 Like, if a guy's too nice, he must be gay.
00:44:11 If a woman's too aggressive, she must be gay.
00:44:14 Well, as Kate would say, "What a bore.
00:44:17 The whole thing is so boring.
00:44:19 You can't know, and it's none of your business,
00:44:21 and who the hell cares anyway?"
00:44:24 [♪♪♪]
00:44:26 She certainly didn't mind the speculation
00:44:31 about who she was dating or how significant it was
00:44:34 that she wore slacks all the time.
00:44:36 It kept people guessing about her and talking about her.
00:44:39 But when it came to scripts, she knew exactly what she wanted,
00:44:42 and she went back to the theatre to do another Philip Barry play
00:44:46 called Without Love.
00:44:48 She tried to get the producers in New York
00:44:50 to hire Tracy to co-star with her,
00:44:52 but they were worried about his drinking.
00:44:54 That was hard.
00:44:56 Working together was a pleasure on its own,
00:44:58 but it was also an excuse for being together
00:45:01 without sneaking around.
00:45:03 Was that love affair a secret?
00:45:06 It had to be, Larry, because of his being married,
00:45:10 and I don't think that either one of them
00:45:13 wanted to bring attention.
00:45:15 So how did they pull it off?
00:45:17 They worked very hard at it,
00:45:20 going to the same hotels, going in back doors.
00:45:22 My aunt went up lots of fire escapes,
00:45:25 climbed in and out of windows, across rooves.
00:45:28 [♪♪♪]
00:45:30 It took me until I was 33 years of age to fall in love
00:45:34 and know what it really meant.
00:45:36 His needs came before mine,
00:45:39 and I looked for his approval with everything that I did.
00:45:43 [♪♪♪]
00:45:47 [♪♪♪]
00:45:49 He was pretty quiet, my grandfather.
00:46:06 Strong silent type, you know?
00:46:09 But he actually took time to take me out in the yard
00:46:12 and play frisbee, and, you know,
00:46:15 he offered to take me places,
00:46:16 but my grandmother wouldn't let me ride in the car with him
00:46:18 because he was a fast driver
00:46:20 and whatever other reasons they might have had.
00:46:23 When I started drinking,
00:46:26 my mom would tell me about alcoholism in the family
00:46:29 and how it's hereditary, and then Spencer,
00:46:31 when I had questions about his health,
00:46:34 it was blamed on damage he did from drinking
00:46:38 and from depression and anxiety.
00:46:40 Having my dad, having a deaf son,
00:46:44 and then Catholic guilt for his relationship problems,
00:46:48 and he actually felt guilty that he became an actor
00:46:51 instead of a father in the Catholic Church.
00:46:53 He said, "You should have more respect for your plumber."
00:46:55 You know, they do more for you than an actor ever will.
00:46:58 [♪♪♪]
00:47:01 It wasn't the fairy tale that they later presented it as being.
00:47:05 Spencer, the alcoholic,
00:47:08 Spencer couldn't work on a set without her being there
00:47:11 to help control him.
00:47:13 [♪♪♪]
00:47:15 I'm sure it was a tempestuous or complicated relationship
00:47:20 and fiery.
00:47:22 He could be often tough on her,
00:47:24 and I think that was the only person she allowed
00:47:26 to get away with that.
00:47:28 [♪♪♪]
00:47:30 Spencer found life very difficult.
00:47:34 He felt that the miseries that he brought on people
00:47:38 were avoidable,
00:47:41 and that if he hadn't existed,
00:47:42 the world would have been better off.
00:47:45 That's a heavy load to carry.
00:47:48 [♪♪♪]
00:47:50 Dearest Brimsel, how are things for you?
00:47:53 I know so little about you these days,
00:47:55 what you are thinking and how you are.
00:47:58 I hope you are well and you're about to start on the new picture.
00:48:01 I send my love and lots of it.
00:48:04 [♪♪♪]
00:48:07 Although Kate was making time to look after Spencer,
00:48:10 she still was challenging herself,
00:48:11 looking for interesting scripts,
00:48:13 things that she could put her stamp on.
00:48:15 When she got the script for Keeper of the Flame in 1943,
00:48:18 it was a controversial idea for the time.
00:48:21 Not only was this script smart and incredibly dramatic,
00:48:25 but there had never been a film depicting women in this way,
00:48:28 a woman going to trial for murder.
00:48:31 [♪♪♪]
00:48:33 The character of Christine was a mature, complex woman,
00:48:37 fully rounded, not another girl like in so many of my other films.
00:48:41 So I jumped at the chance to play a real character
00:48:44 with real life experience.
00:48:47 Keeper of the Flame was another classic Tracy Hepburn pairing,
00:48:51 and I think it particularly inspired Kate
00:48:53 because there had been an unspoken rule in Hollywood films
00:48:56 that a woman could never get away with murder.
00:48:59 Kate wouldn't settle for this and she rewrote the ending of the film.
00:49:02 But when she submitted the new ending,
00:49:05 the writer refused to budge, and that was that.
00:49:07 Senator Tenney has just introduced 11 bills in the state senate
00:49:16 which, if passed, will set California education back 50 years.
00:49:22 These men have learned well
00:49:26 that the hand which rocks the cradle shakes the world.
00:49:34 Kate had been cautious to engage in the public domain,
00:49:37 but by the end of the '40s, the House Un-American Committee,
00:49:40 concerned with moral decline,
00:49:42 had introduced new censorship laws across the arts.
00:49:45 This was Kate's world, and she disagreed completely.
00:49:48 So she stood up and she spoke.
00:49:51 I did it because I believed in it.
00:49:55 I had the full support of my parents,
00:49:57 who believed the only advantages of my position
00:50:00 was the voice it gave me to uplift others without it.
00:50:03 It wasn't about politics. It was about censorship.
00:50:07 Spence disapproved of actors meddling in public affairs,
00:50:11 and again the press sought to drag me through the mud, branding me pink.
00:50:15 I didn't work for the rest of the year after that.
00:50:18 Garson called with a new script he had written for us, Adam's Rib.
00:50:23 It represented everything I believed in,
00:50:26 and I worked closely with him on the script.
00:50:28 With Spencer on board and George directing,
00:50:32 it was nice to have all my friends back working together.
00:50:35 Good morning, Mr. Herlach.
00:50:38 Good morning.
00:50:40 Do you believe in equal rights for women?
00:50:42 What? Objection.
00:50:44 Adam's Rib is one of the movies where she really gives voice
00:50:47 to the idea of women's equality, loud and clear and blatant,
00:50:51 because she's arguing for it in court.
00:50:54 She has continual speeches about,
00:50:56 "What would you do to a man in this position?
00:51:00 "What would you do to a woman in this position?"
00:51:02 In fact, women's equality is not only a subtext of the movie,
00:51:06 the way it always is with her, but the subject.
00:51:09 This poor woman, isn't she entitled to the same justice,
00:51:12 I mean, that's usually reserved for men?
00:51:14 The same unwritten law that got Lenahan off?
00:51:16 Kate was becoming known for playing characters
00:51:18 who defied society's expectations,
00:51:20 and this was what she was doing in her own life.
00:51:23 She was living very differently from most women
00:51:25 who were settling down and having children.
00:51:29 Had you wanted children, would you have married?
00:51:32 Yeah, I would have led a totally different life.
00:51:35 I wouldn't have worked, because I felt that it was
00:51:38 a tremendous job to bring up children carefully,
00:51:42 but I wanted to be thrilling and big stuff.
00:51:46 And you are.
00:51:49 Yes, but I mean, when one pays the price, I think.
00:51:54 The price, though, was it any lonelier for you, do you think?
00:51:58 No, I don't think so. I don't think I'm not the lonelier type.
00:52:00 I know the whole story.
00:52:07 Sam Spiegel told Bogie he had Houston and Hepburn,
00:52:11 and he told Houston he had Bogart and Hepburn,
00:52:14 and he told Hepburn he had Bogart and Houston
00:52:17 before he had any of them.
00:52:19 And that's how he got all of them.
00:52:23 Sam Spiegel sent me C.S. Forrester's The African Queen
00:52:26 to see if I would consider playing Rose in the adaptation.
00:52:29 It was excellent, and I met right away with John Houston and Sam.
00:52:33 At that point, they weren't sure who was going to play the man,
00:52:36 but thought it should be an authentic Cockney.
00:52:39 But once they thought of Bogie, there was no one
00:52:42 that could compete with his personality and looks,
00:52:45 so they changed the character to connect it to the character.
00:52:49 Heading out to Africa felt foreboding.
00:52:52 I still hadn't seen a completed script,
00:52:55 but Bogie, who had worked with John before, said,
00:52:58 "Don't worry. This is the way he does it."
00:53:01 I said, "Wow, this is getting a bit tight."
00:53:04 He said, "You'll see. It'll be worth it."
00:53:07 I was in those days called continuity.
00:53:17 That's me, Katie Hickburn, Humphrey Bogart,
00:53:19 Lauren Bacall, John Houston.
00:53:22 We were all bitten, as I used to say,
00:53:25 bitten to buckery by all these flying insects.
00:53:28 Well, I was young, so it was all a new experience.
00:53:32 I was a young woman, and I was a young woman.
00:53:35 I was a young woman, and I was a young woman.
00:53:38 I was a young woman, and I was a young woman.
00:53:41 I was a young woman, and I was a young woman.
00:53:45 It was all a new experience.
00:53:47 The camp was literally hacked out of the jungle.
00:53:51 The boys would play cards, or there was nowhere else to go.
00:53:55 But Katie, she kept to herself,
00:53:58 and read and learnt her lines and things like that.
00:54:02 She was very disciplined, but she'd be quite bossy.
00:54:06 I mean, John, I suppose you could say he certainly wasn't methodical
00:54:10 in the way she was used to.
00:54:14 One day, we had the famous morning.
00:54:16 We'd travelled up the river and everything, we were doing this scene,
00:54:19 and he said, "Print it." And she said, "But you weren't looking."
00:54:23 She said, "But John, you weren't..." "But I was listening, Katie.
00:54:27 That's not the same. I want to do it again."
00:54:31 Well, we turned the boat around.
00:54:34 We managed to decapitate the boiler and everything else
00:54:38 with all the trees. So it took about four or five hours
00:54:42 to put the boat back together again and do the scene.
00:54:46 We used the original, actually, in the film. She never knew.
00:54:50 That way. Put her over.
00:54:54 Kate's mother was very bright, very capable,
00:55:09 very original thinking, and really held the family together
00:55:13 by being a skilled negotiator. She could handle hep.
00:55:18 And she had a brain hemorrhage and abruptly died at the age of 72.
00:55:25 Everybody was in shock. It was a horrific moment.
00:55:29 Later, when her father died,
00:55:32 she by then had a little experience with death.
00:55:38 After Kate's mother died, she basically overdosed on work.
00:55:42 Because if there's one thing Kate has, it's nervous energy.
00:55:46 And so the pain turns into, "OK, I'm going to make it right.
00:55:50 I'm going to fix it." And it's possible to fix it
00:55:54 so much that you collapse.
00:55:57 One knows that she had certain nervous afflictions.
00:56:07 And there's the story about the millionaires in London
00:56:10 where she apparently was having a nervous breakdown while she was playing it.
00:56:14 Where she couldn't speak. All this was her throat.
00:56:18 She was increasingly manic.
00:56:21 And then eventually in New York she checked into a hospital.
00:56:24 But there she was performing, night after night after night.
00:56:28 My mother said there was a wastebasket where you'd get on stage.
00:56:34 And now and again she'd puke in the wastebasket.
00:56:37 Because she was so wired and scared.
00:56:40 "Oh my God, what will they think? I've got to do a good job!"
00:56:43 And so she'd puke. And then, as my mother said,
00:56:46 she'd go on stage and be absolutely brilliant.
00:56:50 And she'd come backstage and she'd grab me by the shoulders.
00:56:53 "Was I any good? Was I any good?"
00:56:56 I always felt they were out to get me.
00:56:59 And that I'd better be good.
00:57:03 I struggled to do my best.
00:57:05 I struggled for days to do my best for this.
00:57:09 And I don't think you ever feel like anything.
00:57:13 You feel like a bore.
00:57:16 Don't you? Or do you feel fascinated?
00:57:19 No, I feel like a bore most of the time.
00:57:22 Like a bore. Then you think, "My God, they're going to find out what a bore I am."
00:57:25 And then that'll be a terrible thing.
00:57:31 I am delighted to know that not only did you survive the African expedition,
00:57:35 but you got so much fun and only a little disease out of it.
00:57:38 I wish I could write this minute, dash for London,
00:57:41 and be with you for a couple of weeks.
00:57:44 The Millionairess was a huge hit for Hepburn in London.
00:57:48 But she optioned the film rights, she worked on a screen adaptation,
00:57:52 and she pushed the script to everyone she knew who had some power in the business.
00:57:56 She offered to work for free and pay the director.
00:58:00 Out of her pocket. If anybody would make a movie of this.
00:58:03 No one bought it.
00:58:06 I wish I'd never given up on it.
00:58:09 It's that strange thing that time does.
00:58:12 I had forgotten all the doors shut in my face before then.
00:58:15 All the no's.
00:58:17 It had never stopped me before, but this time, I gave up too quickly.
00:58:22 Kate reached out to Constance Collier and asked if she would coach her
00:58:28 for her upcoming Shakespeare tour.
00:58:30 She had helped Kate on The Millionairess and had become not only a friend, but a confidante.
00:58:34 So Constance headed to London with her trusted assistant, Phyllis Wilborn.
00:58:38 When Constance died suddenly while Kate was on tour,
00:58:41 Kate immediately hired Phyllis as her own personal secretary.
00:58:45 Phyllis said, "I never married because there were no men.
00:58:50 They had all been killed in the war.
00:58:52 So I came to America with Miss Hepburn and here I am."
00:58:57 Phyllis was the sweetest, most helpful, gentle creature on the planet.
00:59:05 And Kate kept her carefully for the rest of her life.
00:59:10 Phyllis was very introverted and there to serve, basically.
00:59:17 She would call and arrange an interview.
00:59:20 She'd greet you at the door.
00:59:23 She would say, "Madam is upstairs."
00:59:26 She would kind of drift in and out of a room.
00:59:27 You wouldn't hardly know she was there.
00:59:29 She was clearly very closely bonded to Hepburn.
00:59:33 It was a very trusting relationship.
00:59:37 Spence, Phyllis and I became like a tight-knit family.
00:59:42 Phyllis helped take over everything in my life so I could just focus on my work.
00:59:47 She would join us on holiday and help me nurse Spence back to health when he got sick.
00:59:53 [Music]
00:59:57 Women have to constantly be an act.
01:00:00 And Catherine Hepburn decided, "If I'm going to be an act, I'm going to control what that act is."
01:00:08 When she got older, in the 50s, she made herself into the spinster who's looking for love.
01:00:16 The film I have the most trouble watching is the very beautiful David Lee movie, "Summertime."
01:00:23 The idea of the character undercut her at every single moment.
01:00:29 She is desperately alone and sad because she has no man.
01:00:33 It's a lesson about what will happen to you if you don't get on the marital boat early on.
01:00:39 And the next horrible nail in the spinster coffin is called "Desk Set."
01:00:45 She's the head of a research foundation, but she has a male boss for whom she's been pining for seven years,
01:00:50 waiting for him to propose marriage to her.
01:00:53 For the 500th time, there's a glass wall behind you.
01:00:56 Bonnie, who do you think you're kidding? Everybody knows you haven't got a brain in your head.
01:01:00 The only way you keep your job is by being nice to me.
01:01:02 Well, a girl has to work.
01:01:04 Work? Oh, yes, work. Funny.
01:01:06 It's incredible to watch Hepburn with all her vigor and vitality and intelligence fit this part of the story in.
01:01:14 She can do anything, but she won't get the credit for it, she won't get the money for it,
01:01:17 and she's still pining away for it.
01:01:19 There's a happy ending where it's Spencer Tracy enters,
01:01:22 and presumably better things will happen for her now.
01:01:25 But again, those are the endings,
01:01:27 and what you walk away with is an image of what's been going on through the entire movie.
01:01:32 You're the only thing I care about.
01:01:36 [Gunshot]
01:01:37 In the space of a few years, Spencer and I lost many good friends.
01:01:51 David Selznick, Louis B. Mayer, Bogie.
01:01:55 It was a difficult time, and each loss deeply affected Spencer.
01:02:03 Spencer Tracy can't go on any longer. He just can't do it.
01:02:07 The demons have got him, physically and mentally.
01:02:11 And she takes five years out of her career, which means everything to her, to take care of him.
01:02:17 After Spence became ill, Kate and Spence finally moved in together in a cottage on George Cukor's property.
01:02:29 He used to paint and they would go to the beach, and they lived a very quiet life.
01:02:34 And when he was sick, she loved that.
01:02:37 She seemed to feel empowered by him not being so strong, I guess.
01:02:44 I was not able to solve his problems, but I was able to help him by seeing that he didn't fall down the stairs.
01:02:55 You know, a break has come, and that can just be miserable.
01:02:59 So that was my pleasure.
01:03:02 My father was filmmaker Stanley Kramer, who made "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner."
01:03:10 My parents were part of the Kate-Spence inner circle, and she used to come over after playing tennis and say, "I want to see my baby!"
01:03:18 Kat, my mom, and Spence, and my father, they used to have dinner,
01:03:24 and Spence and her were both always very gossipy about who was sleeping with who, or who was cheating on whom, or who was dating whom,
01:03:32 and this was kind of their form of entertainment.
01:03:35 My mom helped cast Catherine Houghton in the role of Joey.
01:03:40 She said to my father, "Why don't you cast her actual niece?"
01:03:44 Dr. John Wade Prentiss, this is my dad.
01:03:46 Pleased to meet you.
01:03:48 Nice to know you. But what is it? Is something wrong?
01:03:50 This is a picture about a fairly upper-middle class, left-wing, white couple whose daughter brings home a black man.
01:03:59 You know, we would think to ourselves now, you know, anybody would let you marry Sidney Poitier.
01:04:04 It didn't matter, you know, what color or gender you were, you married Sidney Poitier, so what was the deal?
01:04:09 But in those days, that was shocking, because there were states of the union where, for real,
01:04:16 Catherine Houghton and Sidney Poitier could not get married legally.
01:04:21 Two weeks ago, I would have said such a thing was inconceivable.
01:04:25 Spencer Tracy, he doesn't stand up, if you notice, in that movie very much, because he can't.
01:04:30 His heart is giving way. She was very tense.
01:04:33 And she knows, based on his politics and the way he's lived his life,
01:04:38 this is the way he wants to go out to make this statement, that we're all equal.
01:04:43 Where John made his mistake, I think, was attaching so much importance to what her mother and I might think.
01:04:50 Because in the final analysis, it doesn't matter damn what we think.
01:04:54 The only thing that matters is what they feel, and how much they feel for each other.
01:05:02 And if it's half of what we felt, that's everything.
01:05:17 [Music]
01:05:30 The day after I wrapped my shots, in the middle of the night, I heard Spence shuffling down the hall.
01:05:36 I got up to help him, and I heard a cup smash, then the sound of his body hitting the floor.
01:05:46 [Door creaks]
01:05:47 Spence was dead. Heart attack. Peace at last.
01:05:54 The first person I called was Phyllis, who came straight over.
01:06:00 We took all my stuff to the car. Then I thought, "Good God, Kath, what the hell are you doing?
01:06:06 No more sneaking around. You can't deny your life of nearly 30 years together."
01:06:13 So I carried everything back to the house and put it back the way it had been.
01:06:16 Then I called Spence's wife, and she arrived soon after with their children, Susie and John.
01:06:24 All of Hollywood goes to his funeral, and she doesn't go, and she gives the funeral to his wife and his family.
01:06:35 It's massive, because everybody knew what they were to each other.
01:06:41 She's devastated, and she can't grieve. She can't show anybody the grief.
01:06:46 After the press died down, I reached out to Louise and said, "Why not be friends?"
01:07:02 But she said, "You see, I thought you were nothing but a rumor.
01:07:08 A rumor for 30 years. I couldn't believe it."
01:07:13 This whole page is with him.
01:07:25 Spence's funeral. Joe was 12 when his grandpa passed away.
01:07:37 I think he worked hard, and he became one of the best in the world.
01:07:40 And what's great is he didn't even love it.
01:07:43 He didn't go out and try the publicity and all the little angles. He stayed behind the scenes.
01:07:48 He didn't fight for the big contract. He took the salary, you know?
01:07:52 After he passed, actors still study him and respect him for his work.
01:07:58 As talented as he was, he suffered a lot more than he had to.
01:08:05 In his own life, I feel like he didn't know how to be himself as easily as he knew how to be all of the other characters he played.
01:08:12 And that was almost the relief of the guilt of living this double life, of really being with Catherine,
01:08:19 but also having the mother to your children and John. He was split in two.
01:08:25 And there's no resolution. But if we're trying to learn lessons now,
01:08:31 the lesson is figure out what you really want and just be honest. Communicate.
01:08:35 Live in integrity and truth. Don't be crushed by guilt.
01:08:40 My darling Brimsel, words can only skim the surface.
01:08:58 The whole world must seem so odd and so strange.
01:09:01 No one could have loved as much or half as much as you and Spence.
01:09:06 God bless you. I love you so. Laura.
01:09:10 After his death, she keeps working. She's working with Olivier. She's doing all that.
01:09:17 She's working with Cucco again. And then The Lion in Winter, the great movie she makes with Peter O'Toole.
01:09:23 Anthony Hopkins. You never had any children, but she knew what a mother was. And she shows it.
01:09:29 It was the first film I'd ever been involved in. And the first day on set with her, I did everything wrong.
01:09:36 And she asked me if I was frightened of the camera or if I liked the camera.
01:09:40 I said, well, yes, I suppose so. She said, why do you play the whole scene with the back of your head to it?
01:09:44 And then she proceeded to help me. No, she was wonderful. Very demanding of herself.
01:09:50 She would turn up at 630 in the morning, speak off camera lines for us. Many actors don't do that.
01:09:55 She won an Oscar. I accepted it for her. And I called her up in New York. I said, you won the Oscar.
01:10:01 Oh, for God's sake, she said, put it in a bag somewhere. And that's what she thought of it.
01:10:06 Have you ever picked up an Oscar in person? No. No. Till gutless.
01:10:11 You don't scorn the award. No, I'm afraid I wouldn't win it. It must be that.
01:10:16 My father said about his children, when they go to a party, they're afraid they're going to be neither the bride nor the corpse.
01:10:23 For a long time, I was too egotistical, I suppose, and too frightened to accept the fact that the audience,
01:10:36 after all these years, had given me their friendship. Not until Coco did I really understand.
01:10:43 I thought they were my natural enemy and waiting for me to fall down and break my neck or be a flop.
01:10:48 And I think that's what we all think. Don't let them trip you up, you know, get there, do it.
01:10:54 I don't think that's true. It certainly hasn't been true with me from the time of that little girl.
01:10:59 They've tried to help me. They've tried to help me.
01:11:11 Everyone knows her for On Golden Pond, the film for which she won her fourth Academy Award.
01:11:15 It was a real partnership to produce that film with Jane Fonda, and Jane Fonda used it as a vehicle to get closer to her father.
01:11:24 Oh, look at you. Look at this little fat girl.
01:11:30 Oh, Norman, you're as thin as a rail.
01:11:34 Miss Hepburn didn't like me very much. She was so competitive.
01:11:40 Oh, you're home.
01:11:41 I was younger and I was more of a box office star at that particular point in time.
01:11:46 And she was always making sure that I was being put in my place.
01:11:50 There's also, though, this part of her. She wanted me to have stories that I could tell about her after she died.
01:11:58 And she made sure I did.
01:12:00 I was producing the movie for my father. You know, I mentioned earlier, my dad made tremendous fun of me.
01:12:08 It was awful. I was sitting on the couch and suddenly I felt these arms going around me. It was Kate.
01:12:14 He sat down next to me and she said, "Don't let him get to you."
01:12:19 She says, "I know just how you feel."
01:12:22 She said, "Spencer used to do that to me all the time. They have no idea."
01:12:27 She'd say, "They don't know how much those words can hurt you. Don't let it hurt you."
01:12:35 And the fact that she had witnessed my pain and was acknowledging it meant the world to me.
01:12:43 When I was quite young, Kate moved in over at Fenwick.
01:13:02 She kicked us out for like six weeks when she threw out all the old crappy furniture and stuff.
01:13:08 She brought stuff from California and New York.
01:13:11 She would just collect whatever odds and ends there were and arrange them.
01:13:17 Now this lamp would give you a terrible shock if you had bare feet and you touched the leading on the edge.
01:13:25 It was really fun.
01:13:30 Ah! This is the shot that I was looking for.
01:13:33 Dick reports the wind chill is 20 below zero. She's been making these swims since she was five.
01:13:38 Absolute bullshit. She would do it occasionally.
01:13:42 Kate was always an intense person in that old style Victorian way of you get enough sleep, you exercise.
01:13:53 You don't want to, do it anyway.
01:13:57 My father would say, "Take care of the body and it will take care of you."
01:14:02 You say you can still stand on your head.
01:14:05 I tried it the other day. I thought, "Can you still stand on your head?" I can.
01:14:10 I mean, what's it good for?
01:14:13 One's self-respect.
01:14:16 I met Katherine Hepburn just before I turned 20.
01:14:23 She was producing this movie with George Cukor, The Corn is Green by Emlyn Williams.
01:14:28 We were filming all the internal shots and one day I caught a taxi just absolutely panicking that I was going to be late.
01:14:36 And I passed her on a bicycle and she was cycling into the studio through the traffic in trousers, in a blouse.
01:14:44 It was summer and there she was cycling.
01:14:49 One day I walked into her dressing room and she said, "Toya, come and smell this jumper."
01:14:55 So I walked up and I sniffed it and it just smelt like a teddy bear. It's just really lovely.
01:15:01 Spencer Tracy. I can still smell him.
01:15:05 And it was just profoundly moving and incredibly spiritually awakening for me that he had been dead all this time
01:15:17 and she was still wearing his jumpers, would not wash them and she smelt them to keep him there with her.
01:15:25 And I just didn't question it. She still was in love with him.
01:15:31 What would you like to do next?
01:15:34 I don't know.
01:15:36 They send you things?
01:15:38 Well, a lot of lousy things. And I've been lucky enough to do what interested me.
01:15:43 You don't have to do anything.
01:15:46 I thought I'd get the resolution of Grace quickly.
01:15:48 I thought that was very interesting. People couldn't stand it. They hated it.
01:15:53 Was it the death angle?
01:15:55 I think people are very sentimental about life and death.
01:15:58 See, I look forward to life, I look forward to death.
01:16:02 So I've got them fooled.
01:16:05 You should go.
01:16:09 I'm going.
01:16:11 Yes, you should go now.
01:16:13 Thank you.
01:16:16 Is it still turning?
01:16:17 I'm supposed to send my re...
01:16:21 [Music]
01:16:46 As the decades passed, she got jobs here and there.
01:16:48 And she'd go back and forth to New York a lot in Luddy's old house, 244 East 49th Street.
01:16:54 Whoever wasn't doing well, she would go and visit.
01:16:58 So that would be "Lara Hading" as she would call her.
01:17:02 And Luddy, if you're feeling sad, do something for someone else.
01:17:09 And that will help both of you.
01:17:14 After she retired, I think it frustrated her to not be able to work.
01:17:18 Fame is a very addictive drug. Very addictive.
01:17:23 That's the Cornfield Point buoy over there, dinging.
01:17:27 She stayed at Fenwick. She had Phyllis and my father.
01:17:34 He was a strange guy.
01:17:36 He stayed home and wrote his plays.
01:17:40 And she had another helper called Howard Hildebrand.
01:17:43 And they grew old as companions together, but Phyllis was so polite and so deferential.
01:17:49 And I will never forget.
01:17:51 Kate is ancient. Phyllis is ancient plus four.
01:17:55 And Hilly is slowly dying of AIDS.
01:17:58 So he's kind of tottering around in his mid-fifties or so.
01:18:02 "Kate, Phyllis, go get me another drink."
01:18:07 And Hilly gets up and Kate says, "No, Hilly, sit."
01:18:10 "Phyllis, go get me another drink."
01:18:13 "I don't... I suppose..." She could barely walk.
01:18:18 And finally, Kate said, "Phyllis!"
01:18:22 And I remember standing in the kitchen and hearing, "I won't! I won't!"
01:18:29 And I walked in there and I was like, "Yeah, Phyll! Don't take any crap from her!"
01:18:36 And Kate was horrified because that was a complete change of the entire course of her life
01:18:44 up to that moment when Miss Wilburn said, "I won't!"
01:18:49 I love... I say it still. "I won't!"
01:18:53 I said, "I won't!"
01:18:55 A lot of people ask me, "Does she have Parkinson's?"
01:19:17 "Does she have Alzheimer's?" You know, all that sort of thing. She doesn't.
01:19:21 The shaking is a familial tremor.
01:19:24 In fact, I would say, if anything, her shaking is better now that she's leading a very relaxed life.
01:19:30 And as many people in their mid-90s, there's a certain degree of old age.
01:19:36 But she's very much who she is.
01:19:39 Is she still fun to be around?
01:19:43 It depends on her mood.
01:19:48 [Music]
01:19:51 I rather enjoy my quiet life now.
01:19:59 I swim. I garden. I still like to paint.
01:20:04 Me and Phyllis even wrote a play together.
01:20:07 I keep myself busy.
01:20:10 [Music]
01:20:13 Thank you, Kate.
01:20:20 [Music]
01:20:24 I think the reason people have an affection for me now is that
01:20:33 in a kind of a way, I must have lived a life that a lot of women
01:20:39 think would be a nice life to have lived.
01:20:41 They think it's dignified, but they think it's free.
01:20:44 They think I've done what I wanted to.
01:20:47 They don't bother to think that they may have five children that I haven't.
01:20:51 Do you have a lot of fear, though? Does it scare you to start doing movies?
01:20:54 Yes, I think it terrifies anybody who's intelligent to do anything.
01:20:58 I'm a good coverer of them.
01:21:01 [Music]
01:21:03 Maybe the great lesson of a 60-year career,
01:21:07 one that loves you one year and hates you the next,
01:21:09 is that you keep on going.
01:21:11 You compromise when you absolutely have to,
01:21:14 but even then, you push as hard as you can
01:21:17 for the best material you can, and you never quit.
01:21:21 You make some stinkers. You make mistakes.
01:21:24 But you keep on going.
01:21:26 When you find something good, something you really believe in,
01:21:30 you put your heart and your soul and your money into it.
01:21:35 From Philadelphia's story to Guess Who's Coming to Dinner decades later.
01:21:38 Romeo. Romeo.
01:21:41 When you win an Academy Award when you're in your 20s,
01:21:44 and then not another one for decades,
01:21:46 you don't show discouragement,
01:21:48 and you win three more when you're in your 60s and 70s,
01:21:52 the years when it's supposed to be all over for actresses,
01:21:55 but not for you.
01:21:57 You do work you're proud of,
01:22:00 whether it's for $3.50 a week at the Shakespeare Festival in Connecticut
01:22:04 or for millions in Hollywood.
01:22:06 You hold up your standards as best you can in an ensemble system.
01:22:11 You buy the whole system when you can afford it,
01:22:14 and you keep on going.
01:22:16 It is such a simple lesson.
01:22:18 It's amazing that we're not more like her,
01:22:20 with her longevity, her multiple lives on film,
01:22:24 her emphatic character.
01:22:27 But there was only one Katherine Hepburn.
01:22:32 Her thing is, "Come on, get up! Do it! Be! Try! Make something of yourself! Live!"
01:22:39 So,
01:22:49 "Life, life." That's what Kate used to say.
01:22:53 "Ah, life, life."
01:22:55 In other words,
01:22:59 you've got now.
01:23:01 Cherish it.
01:23:02 Cherish it.
01:23:05 I told you,
01:23:09 life goes by like.
01:23:29 As a young girl growing up in Los Angeles,
01:23:31 these old Hollywood starlets really came to me at a young age.
01:23:35 I was just so enamored by not only their beauty,
01:23:38 but this magic about their essence.
01:23:40 But the reality is a lot of these people were very, very mistreated
01:23:44 and died very young.
01:23:46 And so I found myself being so inspired by Katherine.
01:23:49 She's such a powerful icon for women
01:23:52 surviving in the entertainment industry.
01:23:57 I remember once I asked her, "What's the secret to happiness?"
01:23:59 And she said to me, "You're always going to be lonely and depressed
01:24:03 if you think about how you look, where you're going, how you're feeling.
01:24:08 That's because the self is a dead end.
01:24:11 If you concentrate on that," she said, "God help you."
01:24:15 There they are, all the kids.
01:24:18 Kate, Dick, Bob, Marion, Peg.
01:24:22 Tom, too. Everybody's there.
01:24:26 The most interesting thing, I think,
01:24:28 is that she made her own being, her own work of art.
01:24:32 She created a screen persona, performed for you.
01:24:36 And here we are decades later going, "Wow, Katherine Hepburn."
01:24:40 She was cool.
01:24:42 We're floating on a rock in the middle of nowhere
01:24:45 in a universe we know nothing about.
01:24:47 Every single individual on this planet
01:24:50 is not only just a miracle,
01:24:54 but you are exactly that.
01:24:56 You are an individual.
01:24:58 Live that individual life.
01:25:02 [Music]
01:25:05 [Music]
01:25:08 [Music]
01:25:11 [Music]
01:25:13 [Music]
01:25:16 [Music]
01:25:19 [Music]
01:25:22 [Music]
01:25:25 [Music]
01:25:28 [Music]
01:25:31 [Music]
01:25:34 [Music]
01:25:38 (gentle music)
01:25:40 (gentle music continues)
01:25:44 (gentle music continues)
01:25:47 (gentle music continues)
01:25:50 (gentle music continues)
01:25:54 (gentle music continues)
01:25:57 (gentle music continues)
01:26:01 (gentle music continues)
01:26:04 (gentle music continues)
01:26:07 (gentle music continues)
01:26:11 [Music]
01:26:13 [BLANK_AUDIO]