Kit Houghton Hepburn, Her Mother's Daughter

THIS ARTICLE IS ALSO PUBLISHED ON margaretperry.org.

"Mother with her real savvy of life. She adored [father]. She adored us. She was deep. She was witty. Some say I am like her. I hope so, I'd be so proud." (Hepburn 27)

On the 106th anniversary of Katharine Hepburn's birth (May 12, 1907), is only seems fitting to pay a Mother's Day tribute to Mrs. Katharine Martha Houghton Hepburn. As much as I admire Katharine Hepburn the film actress, the real heroine of that family was her mother Kit. 

Mrs. Hepburn was involved in most major causes of the Progressive Reform Era, including woman suffrage, social hygiene, and birth control. She worked tirelessly for women's rights in a way that both enabled and encouraged her oldest daughter to live a life of independence many women of the time could only dream of.

Book Review: "At Home With Kate"

"At Home With Kate: Growing Up in Katharine Hepburn's Household: An Intimate Portrait" is a bit of a highfalutin title for this humble volume. The book is written by the daughter of Katharine Hepburn's cook/housekeeper at the NYC residence, so the author did not actually "grow up" in Katharine Hepburn's household. That's not to say she didn't accumulate a number of interesting anecdotes about the star, but let's just try and keep things in perspective.

In the early 1930s, after Hepburn had made her initial splash out in Hollywood, she and her husband Luddy moved into 244 East 49th Street, a brownstone in the Turtle Bay area of New York City. They rented the house furnished for $100 a month, and in 1937 Hepburn purchased the house for $27,500. 244 would be Hepburn's New York headquarters for the rest of the 20th century.

BRINGING UP BABY (1938) or "Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant Go Leopard-Hunting in Connecticut"

Friends often ask me which Katharine Hepburn film is my all-time favorite. I usually hem and haw and feed them a line about how there is a Hepburn film for every occasion. Sometimes I say that the one I saw last is my favorite. Other times I'll list a top five and watch as their eyes glaze over. Basically, when people ask me about my favorite Katharine Hepburn film, I lie.

Because I do in fact have an ultimate favorite Katharine Hepburn film. My favorite Katharine Hepburn film of all time and in all universes is... Howard Hawks's BRINGING UP BABY (1938). Please, don't judge me.

This week marks the 75th anniversary of BRINGING UP BABY. It's a movie I can watch a million times and still pee myself laughing. I could recite every single line in every scene, but I still demand absolute silence, waiting with baited breath for each familiar punch line. This is the film I force on all my newby-classic-movie-fan-friends. All right, to be perfectly honest, I did force this movie on practically everybody in my college dorm. If I missed you, you're gonna have to come over this weekend so we can remedy that.

Happy Belated Birthday, Miss Bankhead, Dahling!

Don't mess with a Congressman's daughter.

"Say anything about me, darling, as long as it isn't boring."

"My father warned me about men and booze, but he never mentioned a word about women and cocaine." 

Tallulah Bankhead, who passed away in 1968 at the age of 66, would have turned 111 years old last Thursday. In her lifetime she only made 15 movies and only performed in 23 Broadway stage productions. Her only claim to literary fame was an autobiography entitled "My Autobiography." And she was only 5'3".

So why should we remember Tallulah Bankhead?

Because she was a nut. A character. A bonne vivante. A persona (to use the magic word). In short, Tallulah Bankhead was a very interesting person.

The Hepburn Alma Mater: Bryn Mawr College

"In a 1973 visit to the College, Hepburn told Bryn Mawr undergraduates, "Bryn Mawr isn't plastic, it isn't nylon, it's pure gold... I came here by the skin of my teeth; I got in and by the skin of my teeth I stayed. It was the best thing I ever did. Bryn Mawr was my springboard into adult life. I discovered that you can do anything if you work hard enough. I feel that I was enormously lucky to come here. I am very proud when I see the name, very proud." In 1977, Hepburn was awarded Bryn Mawr's Highest honor, the M. Carey Thomas Award." (Bryn Mawr)

Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn in ADAM'S RIB (1949)

Katharine Hepburn’s brand of feminism can be traced back to the philosophies and practices of Bryn Mawr College, one of the Seven Sisters Colleges of the East. Both Hepburn and her mother attended the college which was seen by many to embody the feminist ideals of its first dean and second president, M. Carey Thomas, the nation’s leader in the fight for higher education for women. Hepburn’s connections to the college, both directly through her own experience as a student, and more significantly through the indirect connection with her mother’s generation of Bryn Mawrters, lead to a specific brand of feminism, identifiable as unique to the Bryn Mawr experience.

Feministing the Classic Hollywood Starlet

Attempting to categorise classic Hollywood stars as feminist or anti-feminists is basically a futile exercise. 

In the first place, the term "feminist" or "feminism" didn't come into wide usage until the late 1960s, when the "2nd wave" was in full swing. In fact, when the term did become popular, many of our most influential leading ladies rejected the term. When talk show host Dick Cavett asked Bette Davis if she would mind if he light her cigarette for her she responded, "Oh, no, I'm not woman's lib." During Katharine Hepburn's interview with Cavett, he asked her if she was inspired to support the women's movement, to which she replied in the negative: "No, because we did that, you know, a very very long time ago."

Bette Davis gets a light from Dick Cavett

Secondly, the level of an actress's feminist tendencies is not inherently indicative of her strength of character. Nor does it in any way quantify or qualify her abilities as a performer. For example, some may call Joan Crawford a feminist because she worked so hard to earn a fantabulous career, while others can only see her as a complete witch-with-a-capital-B. At the opposite end of the spectrum other stars, like Judy Garland, may seem like nothing more than vulnerable victims of the studio system, and yet their inner strength of character still bedazzles audiences decades later.

So, what is the point of trying to label actresses as either feminist or not?

Star of the Month Profile: Loretta Young

Born Gretchen Michaela Young on January 6, 1913

Nicknames

Attila the Nun

The Iron Butterfly

Saint Loretta

Religion
Roman Catholic. Young attended Ramona Convent Secondary School as a teen and contributed to a number of Catholic charitable causes during her career. Marlene Deitrich once said of Young, "Every time she sins, she build a church. That's why there are so many Catholic churches in Hollywood." Ouch, Marlene!

Political views
Conservative Republican. Young publicly supported presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan. She also donated money to the Republican National Committee. Like many other stars of the time, including John Wayne, Ginger Rogers, and Irene Dunne, Young was an active member of the Hollywood Republican Committee.

What's Up, January 2013!

Happy New Year, everybody! I am sorry I have been AWOL for the last week or so. Since returning from my six-month stay in England, I've been zipping around seeing old friends. I have finally settled down and am now looking for a real job. Until then, it is back to full-time blogging!

2012 was a great year for me, especially in regards to starting this blog. When I began blogging in the spring, I had no idea how rewarding I would find it! I was also pleasantly surprised to find such a warm and welcoming classic film blogging community. It has been a wonderful experience reading what others have to say about the movies, actors, and directors I love.

I have high hopes for 2013. I have recently started a book review blog called Lit. and a Latte, which I hope will help me grow as a writer while also encouraging me to read more. If you follow The Cinematic Katzenjammer, you may have noticed that I am now writing a daily column called "TCM Today." Many of my articles from The Great Katharine Hepburn are also featured in the "Classic Katz" section of The Cinematic Katzenjammer. Kristen from Journeys in Classic Film has also contributed a number of posts to that page.

Happy Christmas from the Great Katharine Hepburn!

publicity for LITTLE WOMEN (1933)

Joan Blondell, KH, and Spener Tracy in DESK SET (1957)

KH, Peter O'Toole, and Jane Merrow in THE LION IN WINTER (1968)

Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn in HOLIDAY (1938)

Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn in HOLIDAY (1938)

Douglas Montgomery as Laurie and KH as Jo in LITTLE WOMEN (1933)

KH and director George Cukor on the set of LITTLE WOMEN (1933)

Dueling Divas and Why Hepburn Isn't One

This post was written in conjunction with the Dueling Divas Blogathon hosted by Lara at Backlots.

Women in film are often represented as romantic rivals for a male character. Girlfriends and ex-girlfriends, wives and mothers, sisters and fiancées are perpetually warring with each other on the big screen. As the Bechdel test highlights, women are seldom shown as friends, and when they are shown as friends they are still obsessed with love and marriage. We are often exposed to an image of women as bitchy, witchy, and catty. There is no doubt that the media perpetuates this view of womanhood via advertising and news coverage. The current slew of "reality" TV shows is shameless about showcasing the very worst idea of womanhood.

However, there are instances throughout film history when the public has been exposed to alternative, more healthy examples of womanhood. Several of Katharine Hepburn's films include situations where one would expect a "dueling diva" type of scenario, yet in many cases, any semblance of a romantic rivalry is broken down by the ultimate unity, or at least tolerance, of the female characters in question. These examples can be broken down into three distinct categories: communities of professional women, female relatives, and friendships. Hepburn's persona, as a champion of women's equality, serves to bring women together, rather than alienate them from each other. Here are the various ways that the strength of the Hepburn persona as anti-rival is manifested in her films: