It is Tracy Lord's purpose to go to work on the cliches and generalisations of class, and it was Hepburn's unique position in Hollywood to chip away at some of America's more banal and oppressive received ideas. In that film the question at hand is class Hepburn's Tracy Lord is trying to convince a class-conscious Jimmy Stewart that virtue is not restricted to the working men of the world, any more than honour rests solely with the rich. The kind of woman she played, the kind of woman she was, is still the kind of woman I should like to be, and an incidental line of hers, from the aforementioned The Philadelphia Story, remains my lodestar every time I pick up a pen to write anything all: "The time to make your mind up about people is never!" This line was written by Donald Ogden Stewart, but in its utterly humanist commitment to the peculiarity and beauty of individuals, it was 100% Hepburn. Possibly because she got to me so young, her effect is rather out of proportion with what any movie star should mean to anyone, but I am immensely grateful for it. When she sailed through her late 80s without incident, I do recall becoming partially convinced of her immortality. As a child I spent too much time worrying over her health, and wanting assurance from my father (also a fan and only 18 years her junior), that she would outlive us all. Amid the pictures of Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart, Donald O'Connor, Ava Gardner, and the rest, Ms Hepburn - imperious, regal and red-headed (although this last was often disguised in the publicity shots) - sat high up by the cornice of the ceiling, like a madonna looking over the lesser saints. My teenage bedroom, for many years a shrine to the Golden Age of Hollywood, reserved a whole half-wall for her alone. The sheer scarcity, in cinema, of women who in any way resemble those unusual creatures we meet every day (our mothers, sisters, wives, lovers, daughters) has only intensified in the 20 years since Katharine Hepburn ceased making movies, and this has served to make her legacy more precious as time has passed.įrom the earliest age I was devoted to her. She was also the star of my second favourite film (Adam's Rib), and my third (Woman of the Year), and she appeared in a large proportion of the other movies I can stand to watch without throwing something at the screen or falling asleep. K atharine Hepburn was the star of my very favourite film, The Philadelphia Story.
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