In the Company of Legends Page 4

After I’d discussed with our cameraman where to set up, I joined Joan who was chatting with Plunkett and his son, Lee. I said, “We’ve been asking everyone if they know about any behind-the-scenes footage of Katharine Hepburn. So far, we haven’t found any. She was obviously very good at avoiding home movie cameras.” I was simply making conversation to fill time while our crew got ready. But to my surprise he thought for a second and then replied, “When I was at RKO in the thirties, I’d sometimes bring my camera to the set. I wonder if I have any footage of Kate in the closet upstairs?”

  JK It was as if David had taken a pep pill. Suddenly he perked up, and I saw him try to contain his excitement.

  He said, “Mr. Plunkett, would you be kind enough to see if you can find the film?”

  “Do you have the time?” he asked. “It looks as if you’re almost ready for the interview.”

  “Don’t worry,” said David. “We can wait.”

  DH He went up to the second floor and we heard him rummaging around. When he returned about ten minutes later, he was carrying several small cans and a projector. He didn’t have a movie screen, so he showed the film on a white wall. And there she was: the elusive Katharine Hepburn playing ball with the crew between takes during production of Quality Street, practicing a formal dance sequence with her co-star, Franchot Tone, and talking with a young Walter Plunkett. On the same reel, there was also color footage of Charles Laughton in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, which RKO had shot in black and white. Yet here he was on that famous set in color. I could hardly believe what I was seeing.

  “Mr. Plunkett, can we borrow your film and have it transferred?” I asked him. “I’ll take it to New York and then send back the original and a copy on tape.”

  He said, “Of course,” and also signed a release, which gave us permission to use it in our program.

  We learned an important lesson that day. People forget what they have tucked away in closets and garages until you ask. If you’re lucky and push the right button at the right time, it can lead to pay dirt.

  JK A few weeks later, we returned to Los Angeles to interview George Cukor. He was somewhat frail at the time and noticeably tired. But his sense of humor was intact.

  “I directed her first picture6,” he said. “And even then she tried to give orders. Sometimes she has good ideas—but she’s not always right. I, on the other hand, am always right.”

  His house was beautiful. He was clearly proud of it, and gave us a tour. I wondered if parts of it had been the inspiration for the set of The Philadelphia Story. There was a slightly sunken but very large guest room where Greta Garbo and many other legends had stayed. And Spencer Tracy had lived with Katharine Hepburn in another house on the property until Tracy’s death in 1967.

  JK and DH Back in New York, we filmed Lauren Bacall who’d been on location with her husband, Humphrey Bogart, and Katharine Hepburn during the filming of The African Queen.

  We also interviewed Kate’s old friend, Laura Harding. They’d met in 1929 at The Berkshire Theatre Playhouse where both of them were aspiring actresses and were cast in the same play. After Hepburn was offered a contract with RKO, they both went to Hollywood and shared a house together. When Cukor chose Kate for A Bill of Divorcement, he gave Laura a cameo role; she appears at the top of the stairs in the opening scene.

  Lauren Bacall.

  New York, 1980. Photograph by Brownie Harris.

  Rumor always had it that John Barrymore, the star of the picture and a well-known womanizer, tried to seduce Hepburn during production. Over fifty years later, she told us over lunch, “Never, never. He was sweet and helpful. A generous actor. No one ever made a pass at me like that. Never was subjected to the fabled ‘casting couch’ by producers or directors or male stars. No, no. Never. Never.”

  DH In our first conversation, she had said, “And don’t forget Tony Harvey.”

  He’d been the editor for Stanley Kubrick on Lolita and Dr. Strangelove, but by 1967 had directed only one short film of his own, Dutchman. Peter O’Toole had seen it and, having been asked to star in The Lion in Winter, took an enormous leap of faith and recommended that Anthony Harvey be hired to direct. O’Toole also felt that there was only one actress to play Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine opposite his King Henry II in James Goldman’s epic story about a dysfunctional royal family in twelfth century England. He sent Kate the script and a few days later, she called him.

  “Do it before I die,” she said.

  Despite his inexperience, Tony knew he could not be cowed by the star power of his leading actors. In one crucial scene where Queen Eleanor is examining herself a mirror, he wanted Hepburn’s hair to fall loosely around her face.

  She reacted immediately: “No. No. Never wear my hair down.”

  Tony insisted. She refused. The test of wills spilled over to the next day, and Tony shut down production. Two days later they were still at a stand-off.

  Having a cast and crew on location and on salary for three days without working is almost unheard of, and Peter O’Toole decided he had to step in.

  “I think you’d better give in to her,” he warned, “or you’re going to be replaced.”

  Tony was adamant. “No. I’m going to damn well hold out for this.”

  Years later, Ray Gow, the hairdresser that Hepburn requested we hire for The Spencer Tracy Legacy: A Tribute by Katharine Hepburn, told us that the first time he worked with her was on The Lion in Winter. On the third day of Kate’s stand-off with Tony Harvey, Gow said to her, “Let’s just see how you’d look with your hair down.” He took out the pins that held it up and created a style which made it seem as though it had fallen naturally.

  “Now that is how Eleanor of Aquitaine would look at the end of a tough day dealing with her husband and three grown sons,” he said.

  Hepburn looked at herself in the mirror, carefully analyzing the effect from every angle.

  “Hmm,” she said, and then turned to Gow who was standing behind her. “You know,” she said to him, “you’re more than just a pretty face.”

  “That night,” Tony Harvey told us, “she sent me a bottle of champagne with a card that said, ‘I hope the moon and stars will be with you for the rest of this film.’”

  The next day, she was back on the set and they shot the scene with her hair down.

  It was only a few weeks after we’d interviewed Tony that we heard through our Hepburn grapevine that he felt uneasy about his on-camera performance and was considering asking if we would film him again. Apparently, he shared his feelings with Kate over dinner one evening.

  “Idiotic,” she told him. “Don’t be an ass. You’re not that important.”

  He never did request the re-shoot.

  JK and DH We’d been trying for some time to line up interviews with Peter O’Toole, Ralph Richardson, and Laurence Olivier, and knew we’d have to travel to England to shoot them. PBS agreed to give us the additional funds we’d need on the condition that Peter O’Toole would film an on-camera introduction to The Lion in Winter, which the network was planning to show directly after the premiere of our documentary. His agent confirmed that he’d do it, so we sent him the short script about ten days before we left New York.

  We weren’t able to get Olivier, but succeeded in scheduling both O’Toole and Richardson for the same day during the week before Christmas, 1980.

  JK I’d never been to England before and was looking forward to the trip. But at the airport in New York, I felt the beginnings of a cold. On the plane, I started to have chills, and by the time we landed at London’s Heathrow that evening, every part of my body ached. I took a hot shower as soon as we arrived at the Gloucester Hotel in South Kensington, met David for dinner downstairs (a few spoonfuls of chicken broth was all I could manage), then went straight to bed, hoping I’d feel better for the interviews the next day.

  O’Toole’s home was in Hampstead, in the north of London. There was no heat in the house and, to my horror, the plumbing wasn’t working, so the toilet wouldn’
t flush. I was freezing and my stomach was upset. But there was no way I was going to miss this.

  DH Peter O’Toole told us, “The first time Kate walked into my dressing room, I was pissing in the sink. Of course, I then had to pretend I wasn’t. And she pretended she didn’t notice.” And he said, on another visit, Hepburn hit him. “She punched me. Never knew why.”

  There is a somewhat different version of the story. In it there appears to be a motive for the punch, although whether O’Toole deserved it is up for debate. He and Hepburn both shared Ray Gow as their hairdresser, and Gow was chatting with O’Toole in his dressing room on the lower level while Kate was shooting one of her scenes on the stage above. Between takes, Hepburn needed Gow, and sent a production assistant to find him, but he didn’t show up. She tried again. When he still didn’t appear, she marched downstairs into O’Toole’s dressing room and slapped him. “You’re not working at the moment. I am. The next time I send for the hairdresser, make sure he comes.” She turned around and left with Ray Gow in tow, leaving behind a stunned Peter O’Toole.

  “I only hit the people I love,” she later told him.

  To which he replied, “Maybe you should start hating me for awhile!”

  After the interview, I handed him the script for the introduction to The Lion in Winter.

  “No, I don’t want to do that,” he said firmly.

  I was astonished. But no amount of coaxing would change his mind. He was unyielding. How was I going to explain to PBS that he refused at the last minute?

  Then, suddenly, he said, “But come into the den. I’d like to show you some photos.” He led me to the cluttered front room of his house and took some pictures out of a desk. They were photographs of his children, including his daughter, Kate, who was named after Katharine Hepburn. As he shared his feelings about his family, I found it hard to believe this was the same person who, just moments ago, had adamantly refused to read our script.

  JK We headed back to central London to film Ralph Richardson. He’d agreed to let us shoot in the dressing room of the Comedy Theatre, where he was appearing in the play, Early Days. By now, I knew I had the flu, and even though I hadn’t eaten anything all day, the urge to throw up caused me to spend some time in the theatre’s bathroom.

  I made it out by the time David and the crew were ready and, a few minutes later, Richardson arrived. I was amazed to see how tall he was. Somehow I hadn’t expected the height. And he was sweet. He offered to arrange tickets for that evening’s performance, but David told him, “Joan’s not well, so I think she needs to go to bed as soon as we’ve finished filming.” He put his hand on my cheek and said, “Would you like me to call my doctor for you?”

  I managed a weak smile and replied, “No, I think I’ll be okay. But thank you for the offer.”

  DH Despite my asking him not to look into the camera, he did, and parts of his interview felt too much like a performance. But he was insightful, describing Hepburn’s role in the one picture they made together, Long Day’s Journey Into Night, as “a deep part that should be played as though on a cello.”

  She told us years later that she felt that movie was a real departure for her. She said to herself, “Don’t act. Don’t do anything. Just stay out of the way of that poor, lonely, drug-addicted woman and let her carry me along.”

  JK We’d written a letter to Cary Grant, asking him to take part in the program. He and Hepburn had made four films together and, even though we knew the chances of him agreeing were next to zero, we felt there was no harm in trying. We received a call from Barbara Harris, who would later become his wife, telling us that he wouldn’t participate. A few days later, I wrote to him again, asking him to sign the release form I’d enclosed7, giving us permission to use film clips in which he appeared. Barbara Harris called again, but this time she said, “Hold on please. Mr. Grant would like to speak with you.”

  Suddenly, I heard that voice, and I must admit I was excited. He sounded exactly as he did on screen, with the same clipped accent.

  “I’m signing the release you sent me, but please use excerpts that make Kate look good.”

  “Mr. Grant, thank you. However, we want to show clips in which both of you look good.”

  “No. It’s her show. So it’s important that she’s the one that looks good.”

  While I had him, I couldn’t pass up the chance to say, “And Mr. Grant, we’d love to do a similar program about you.”

  “Darling, I never do television. If I said ‘Yes’ to one project, I’d be playing favorites, so I just refuse all of them.”

  “Well, we may not go away so quickly. You might hear from us again one of these days.”

  “Okay. But my answer will be the same8.”

  Cary Grant’s permission.

  1980. Authors’ collection.

  DH We had to decide soon who should narrate the program. We wanted someone with a connection to Hepburn, and decided to ask Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. He had starred with her in Morning Glory—her first Oscar win—back in 1933, and they were still friends. He agreed to do the narration, but, although he lived in New York, he was making a movie in Vermont (Ghost Story, which also starred Fred Astaire and John Houseman). So I’d have to go there.

  The day before leaving, I called him to confirm when and where we would do the recording session, but I could barely hear the person who picked up the phone. It was unsettling to discover that the weak, hoarse voice at the other end was his. He explained he’d been sick with laryngitis, but assured me that he would be fine in a couple of days, and not to worry. Of course, I did.

  It was late January, and Vermont, living up to its reputation, was blanketed with snow. However, the tiny commuter aircraft had no trouble landing, and after a short drive I was in Woodstock, VT. We recorded Douglas Fairbanks the next day in a conference room at his hotel, and he must have been nursing his vocal chords because he sounded much stronger than when I spoke to him from New York. However there’s still an undeniable rasp to that famous voice on the soundtrack of our program. I’m very aware of it, but most people seem not to notice.

  JK and DH With post-production completed, and the show ready to deliver to PBS, it looked as though the end was in sight. But there was one last stumbling block.

  The previous year, WNET had launched a new magazine, The Dial, to replace the small, brochure-like monthly program guides that most public television stations sent out to their viewers. The Dial was large format, glossy, and needed to make an impact. For the issue that coincided with our airdate, the editor decided to commission Helen Lawrenson to write an article about Katharine Hepburn, which became the cover story. Entitled “Hepburn Reconsidered,” it was an unflattering evaluation of her talent as an actress. The New York Post picked it up and wrote gleefully, “We can’t wait for Kate the Great to strike back.” Since WNET was the source of both The Dial and our program, it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to assume that our show, which wouldn’t air for another couple of weeks, was a similar hatchet job. We needed to move quickly to contain the damage, to reassure Hepburn, her family, and friends, and everyone who had participated in the program that we hadn’t betrayed them.

  By then, Laura Harding had already reached Jay Iselin, the president of WNET, to complain. Jane Fonda’s office called to say she wanted nothing to do with a project that treated Hepburn in this way, and asked for her interview to be removed from the show. Cary Grant contacted KCET in Los Angeles to protest and also wrote an angry letter to the editor of The Dial. Fortunately, we were able to convince all of them that our program had nothing to do with the Helen Lawrenson article, and that we were as shocked by it as they were.

  Not long after the show aired, we received a letter from San Francisco, where Kate was still on tour with The West Side Waltz. She told us not to worry about the article, as she had learned long ago that such criticism came with being in the public eye. “I’m sorry your spirits were hurt,” she wrote. “Really it’s so quickly yesterday’s sour jibe. And o
f course I knew you people had nothing to do with it.”

  Then she commented on the program, stating that she hadn’t seen it and wouldn’t until she was back in New York, when we’d watch it together. But she’d had reports from those who had: “Family and friends all thrilled, even the most critical ones. Many, many thanks for making me seem so fascinating… You obviously did me proud.”

  In accordance with the rules of the Screen Actors Guild, she was entitled to residual payments for several of the film clips we’d used. Our colleague in the legal department, Lynne Autman, sent Hepburn a letter asking for her social security number so that WNET could issue a check for the total amount: $1,100. Kate wrote back immediately and Lynne shared a copy of the note: “Here’s my social security number. You keep the money.” Essentially, Katharine Hepburn was making a donation to public television, and when we told Jay Iselin, he sent her a Channel 13 tote bag and umbrella, along with a letter of thanks.

  True to her word, she called us not long after returning from the tour. “Hello. It’s Kate. Come for tea.”

  We arrived at her town house on East 49th Street a few days later. She opened the door herself and said, “So you’re the ones that did it.”

  “Guilty as charged,” we replied.

  “Come on upstairs.”

  The house had an immediate feeling of comfort, of being lived in, with wonderful aromas coming from the kitchen. The second floor living room was furnished with a white sofa, several chairs, a coffee table, buffet table and a slightly worn rug. And there was a fire burning in the fireplace even though it was the beginning of July. On the mantle were two candlesticks that had belonged to Hepburn’s mother. There was nothing pretentious about the room or about the big star who lived there. She was wearing white pants, a navy shirt with the collar turned up, sandals, no makeup, and her mostly gray hair, still with a touch of auburn here and there, was loosely pinned up. She sat on what was obviously her favorite chair near the window, with her feet propped up on an ottoman. Hanging from the ceiling above her was an enormous carved wooden bird that had belonged to Spencer Tracy.