Katharine Hepburn: All About Me

Katharine Hepburn narrates her own biography. It's a TV movie of her recounting her life in the movies. It's a very straight forward telling, one movie at a time. It's a lot of movie clips and some home movies. Sometimes, she talks about the acting. She's still quite active at the time and she is sharp as a tack. She talks plenty about the business and her personal life. The business can be cut-throat. Her personal life is rarely as juicy as the tabloids would have you believe. She's not shy about much and she talks about her relationships especially Spencer Tracy, the love of her life. It's her voice. It's her words. It's her life.

We never saw this documentary when it came out. In a tribute to Katherine Hepburn, TCM showed it, as part of the daily festivity. Director David Heeley, who also co-wrote the material with Ms. Hepburn, clearly demonstrate an impeccable taste in what he carefully picked to show us.

Katherine Hepburn was a woman ahead of her times. She had a sense of self and her own style, something that came to her naturally. Ms. Hepburn was an actress who knew what seemed to suit her talent as we witness in all the movies she graced with her presence.

We are given clips from her films, as well as a tour of her Connecticut home and her surroundings. Also, in the documentary, we see some comments by her peers that speak volumes as to what extent she was admired by the people that came in contact with her. And, yes, she was opinionated, and didn't care to express her views, as she stuck by her principles.

Yes, it certainly was a privileged life.

I remember my first film with Katharine Hepburn. I saw her in Ernest Thompson's "The Golden Pond" which won her fourth Academy Award with Henry Fonda and his daughter Jane Fonda. I believed for a long time that she was Henry's wife and Jane's mother in real life. That was how good she was. I didn't know much about her personal life or her secret longtime affair with Spencer Tracy. Watching this documentary following the Philadelphia Story is a treat. It recaptures her life and legacy. She will be best remembered as one of America's most treasured actresses on film, television or stage. Yet, she didn't have an ounce of vanity. When she talks about Arzner or those lesbian rumors, she jokes them off when it could have destroyed her career. She talks about her only marriage, her New York City townhouse which I used to visit across from my doctor's office. Sadly in 1997, I believe she was living full time in her beloved Connecticut home but yet she still managed to live an amazing life. She manages to garden, bike, and be quite active. She is an inspiration for us all.

Having seen a bunch of these, I was prepared for the same sort of star turn, image-projecting, egotistically considered, carefully edited and sculpted, "make sure you show my best side" deal we've gotten used to. BUT... I guess I should have known better, and I certainly wasn't surprised, given the Character (with a capital C) of this remarkable person.

She may have known what she wanted to talk about in each segment, but she does (or appears to do) every one of them impromptu.

Her disquisition on her 27 years with Spencer Tracey would have been affecting on its own. But intercut as it was with his manifesto scene from "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" -- shot as it was in Tracey's final weeks of life -- her reaction to his commentary about =their= relationship (not just the one on screen) caused her eyes to widen and mouth to drop open. And the director of that film made sure it didn't wind up on the cutting table.

If you get a chance to see it on TCM, you may consider yourself as blessed as I do just now after having seen it.

"Katharine Hepburn: All About Me" (1993) Is The Best Movie Star Biography Documentary Ever Made...She Was 85 And Hosted It!

Katharine Hepburn (1907 - 2003) lived past her 96th birthday, and won more "Best Actress" Academy Awards than any performer in movie history.

She won four "Best Actress" Academy Awards, 3 of them after she was 60 years old. Her Academy Award movies included "Morning Glory" (1933), "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner" (1967)....her intimate friend of 27 years, Spencer Tracy died 17 days after "Dinner" was completed....., "The Lion In Winter" (1968), and "On Golden Pond" (1981).

She was and is a legend.

Anyone who cares for movies and movie history must see this remarkable autobiography documentary made when Hepburn was 85 years old in 1992, which she narrates and hosts with a lot of on-screen time at her famous beach home in Connecticut.

This documentary movie is a treasure.

Expensive used VHS copies are available from Amazon.Com and so is the same movie available inexpensively with the "Philadelphia Story" (1940) "Special Edition" VHS and also 2 disc DVD presentations.

I own a copy of the VHS version of "The Philadelphia Story" (1940), screened it (as I have many times before), and accidentally discovered this wonderful biography documentary about Hepburn added after the final credits of "Philadelphia Story" ended.

I couldn't believe how good the documentary was, or how electric Katharine Hepburn was, still, at age 85 when she participated in making it.

The attention to relevant details is especially notable. We see her two houses, one in Manhattan and one on the beach of the Connecticut coast, both of which she lived in and visited from the early 30's, and still occupied when the documentary was prepared 60 years later in the early 1990's.

Titles of her many stage plays between her 1928 college graduation from Bryn Mawr College near Philadelphia, PA (also her mother's alma mater...her father was a physician) and her Hollywood movie star years starting in the middle 1930's. Titles of her Shakespeare stage plays performed all over the world in the 1950's and 1960's are also given, all with supporting still photos.

Her first (and only legal) husband, "Luddy" Smith, is shown in 1928 still photos and others during their 5 year marriage and lifelong friendship which lasted well after their divorce.

Garson Kanin and Ruth Gordon are shown in still photos during the late 1940's and early 1950's period when the famous writer couple wrote successful movie scripts tailor-made for Hepburn and Tracey ("Pat and Mike," "Adam's Rib," etc.).

Members of Hepburn's long employed personal home staff are shown working and playing as part of Hepburn's household and de-facto old age family.

Hepburn's wonderful and unexpectedly candid and revealing comments about important people, events, and even money amounts part of her career make the wonderful visuals and writing even better. She talks directly to the camera, and to those watching this incredible story of her incredible life.

In an age when many in America and elsewhere in the world aspired to higher education and an interesting, independent very long adventurous romantic life, Katharine Hepburn provided a marvelous role model and example of how all of that is done when it's done well.

The omission of Philip Barry's "Holiday" (1938) movie starring Hepburn and Cary Grant is the only serious flaw (Barry went on to write "The Philadelphia Story" expressly for Hepburn...it was a hit stage show in NYC first, then a hit movie now justifiably considered a classic. "Philadelphia Story" would not have happened unless "Holiday" (1938) happened before it...."Holiday" is a critical movie in the Katharine Hepburn story.)

This documentary is so complete and so touching, tears came to my eyes as I watched it.

It is one of the very great legacies to come out of Hollywood, and the often tried (and mostly failed) effort people make to explain Hollywood and "the movies," and what they mean.

This is an important documentary movie about one of movie history's most important people. Get it, screen it often, tell people about it, treasure it.

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Written by Tex Allen, SAG Actor.

Email Tex Allen at TexAllen@Rocketmail.Com

Visit WWW.IMDb.Me/TexAllen for movie credits and biography facts about Tex Allen's movie career and life.