An excellent interview with the host of Turner Classic Movies on KH.
Box Office Mojo: Why didn't Katharine Hepburn attend the Oscars?
Robert Osborne: She was never sure she was going to win and she certainly didn't want to lose. There's probably no one more conceited than Katharine Hepburn. She always wanted to be the most fascinating person in the room.
Complete interview.
It's not a flattering quote about KH, but it's honest and a perfect example of why you have to separate the artist from her work (a lesson well-learned in 1992 when faced with the prospect of never again watching Annie Hall , but I digress). Like Garbo, whom Osborne also mentions, James Dean, Judy Garland and others, KH's legend has outgrown her self. We don't want to know anything about her that would in any way negate the image we've drawn from the characters we love. We need to believe that Jo March was named Woman of the Year and then settled down and grew old with Norman Thayer, Jr.
I have William J. Mann's Kate: The Woman who Was Hepburn, which is by all accounts an excellent biography, with much of the praise centered around Mann's deconstruction of KH's persona and legend. I'm both fascinated by the possibility and reticent to let go of the legend.
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