Katharine the Great

 

 One hundred and four years ago today, in Hartford Connecticut, a baby girl was born to Dr. Thomas Hepburn and his wife. The baby was called Katharine Houghton, after her mother, and she grew to become the best screen actress the world has ever seen. 

My fascination with Katharine Hepburn began in May of 2007, with the Centenary of her birth. Turner Classic Movies (TCM) www.tcm.com celebrated with airing many of her films all month and I would stay up until the wee hours of the morning and refuse social invitations to be able to make sure that I could  see as many of these films as I could. It wasn't long until I understood why many people refer to Hepburn as Katharine the Great. 

Katharine Hepburn died in 2003 at the age of ninety-six. In a way, I'm glad that I didn't know of her at the time of her death. For if I did, I'm quite sure that I would have mourned her loss as if she were a dear friend. 

In honor of Katharine Hepburn's birthday, and of her work, I present my top five favorite Katharine Hepburn movies:

5. Woman of the Year (1942) This was the movie that paired her with Spencer Tracy for the first time. They would go on to make eight more films together. In this film, Kate plays the typical "independent woman" journalist who falls in love and marries the sportswriter of the newspaper she works for. It isn't long before husband and wife begin to clash over what makes a successful marriage. 

4. Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967)  In this film, Hepburn and Tracy worked together for the last time. They were joined by Sidney Poitier and Kate's real-life niece Katharine Houghton, and they played liberal thinking parents having to come to terms with their daughter's engagement to a black man. At the time, the subject of interracial marriage was unheard of, and quite honestly, was a very brave move on the part of everyone who was involved.

3. The Lion in Winter (1968) Hepburn played Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine to Peter O'Toole's King Henry II. Although she has much less screen time than anyone else in the film, she dominates it. And I must say that it is an absolute disgrace that Barbra Streisand tied with her for the Best Actress Academy Award. 

2. The Philadelphia Story (1940) With this film, Hepburn returned to box office stardom after being labeled box office poison. Paired with Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart and directed by George Cukor, she proved that she was a force to be reckoned with. She had the most delicious way of biting off a line and smiling as she spat venom.

1. Bringing up Baby (1938) My all time favorite Katharine Hepburn movie and the ultimate screwball comedy involving a stodgy paleontologist, a zany heiress, two leopards, and a dog. It was a failure on its initial release, because, according to director Howard Hawks, "Everybody was crazy." It is now considered the definitive screwball comedy, and in my opinion, one of the funniest movies ever made. And Kate had never been better. 

   Happy birthday, Kate. Thank you for  leaving behind such an amazing body of work for the world to enjoy. Thanks for being you. Thank you for just being. You are my hero.

Katharine Houghton Hepburn

1907-2003

Elizabeth Taylor: 1932-2011

Today is a sad day. Early this morning, Elizabeth Taylor passed away from heart failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California. She was 79 years old.

Born on February 27, 1932 in London to American parents, she moved to America at a young age and, after seeing a Shirley Temple movie with her mother, decided that she wanted to be an actress.
In 1944, she got her first starring role playing Velvet Brown in MGM's National Velvet. She was catapulted to stardom and made many films for MGM before the age of eighteen.

Velvet and the Pie, National Velvet

In 1950, Taylor starred alongside Spencer Tracy in Father of the Bride and a year later, she starred opposite Montgomery Clift in A Place in the Sun. Together, these two films would establish her as a legitimate actress.

A Place in the Sun, 1951

During the 1950s she would turn in many incredible performances in great films: Giant; Raintree County; Suddenly, Last Summer; Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, 1958

Suddenly, Last Summer. 1959

In 1960, Taylor won an Oscar for her performance as ill-fated call-girl Gloria Wondrus in Butterfield 8. Hardly her greatest performance, she was awarded an Oscar due to the fact that she had just faced a near death battle with pneumonia and undergone an emergency tracheotomy. Taylor was the first to acknowledge this fact and in fact, despised her performance and the movie itself.

In 1966, she won the role of a lifetime when she starred opposite Richard Burton in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Many people were surprised that she had undertaken such a role. This character was a middle-aged, overweight, drunken, vulgar woman who was anything but glamorous and beautiful. But Elizabeth pulled it off splendidly, gaining weight, dressing in frumpy clothing, wearing no makeup, and sporting a messy, ratty mop of graying hair. She shocked critics and audiences alike, and was rewarded with her second Best Actress Oscar.

I'm going to make the biggest goddamn explosion you ever heard

In the early 80s, Taylor spent less and less time on her career, and devoted much of her time to AIDS research and awareness. Long before it was fashionable for celebrities to champion causes, Elizabeth Taylor took a stand and devoted herself to educating the masses about AIDS. Before, people were so afraid of getting AIDS, because they just weren't educated as to how the disease is spread. Others thought that only gays could get it. Elizabeth helped to educate them, and it is in part thanks to her that people learned that AIDS knows no race, creed, color, gender, or sexual orientation, and that you cannot get AIDS from regular, ordinary contact with an AIDS victim. In 1993, she would be rewarded with the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for her efforts.

Of course, you really can't talk about Elizabeth Taylor without mentioning her stunning, flawless beauty. Observe:

 

 

 

"You will kneel..On your knees"

 

All in all, Elizabeth Taylor was a beautiful, caring, generous, talented woman who lived about twenty five lives in one. Hopefully now she can rest some. 

Goodbye, Elizabeth. We'll miss you.

 

This song is off the Inglourous Basterds soundtrack, but I think that the music perfectly suits Elizabeth.