Product Description

Hollywood has produced many stars, but no one compares to Katharine Hepburn. She is the last of the great ones: a celebrated actress, a brilliant personality, an original.

Barbara Leaming has discovered thousands of never-before-seen documents that finally illuminate the mystery of this enigmatic, fascinating woman. Based on letters by Hepburn, her friends, and her family, as well as interviews with Hepburn herself, Leaming's book is a family story that brings alive three generations of fearless women, personal and political crusaders who shaped the history of women in our century.

Product Details

• Published on: 2008-04-18
• Released on: 2008-04-18
• Formats: Abridged, Audiobook, MP3 Audio
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Audio CD

From Publishers Weekly
Hollywood biographer Leaming presents a detailed account of the professional and personal life of Hepburn, the only star to ever win four Oscars for best actress.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
One might rightly wonder what there is left to say about actress Hepburn, since she has already been extensively written about and interviewed and has written her autobiography, Me: Stories of My Life (Knopf, 1991). But biographer Leaming (If This Is Happiness, LJ 9/1/89) has managed to add a whole new perspective to what is already known. Leaming starts this biography not with Hepburn's birth and early life but with her mother Kathy (known later as Kate). Kathy's mother, Carrie, was forced to take charge of her three girls after the suicide of her husband, Fred. Carrie's courage, strength, and fervid desire for her daughters to be educated led Kathy to become a leader in the early women's movement. These role models together helped shape the woman we know as Katharine Hepburn. Leaming hypothesizes, however, that Hepburn was also driven by the shadow of suicide, which took her brother Tom as well. This is less a gossipy, glitzy celebrity bio and more an exploration of the New England social mores that shaped this living legend. Highly recommended.?Rosellen Brewer, Monterey Bay Area Cooperative Lib. Sys., Cal.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From AudioFile
Hepburn has a reputation for her unconventional approach to life, but the listener won't learn much about that. Abridged from Barbara Leaming's lengthy tome, this program tells more about the people in Hepburn's life than about the eccentric actress. Do we really need to know the exact hours and dates of her uncles' deaths at the expense of major portions of her career? This poorly balanced program contains endless detail and major gaps. Reader Sandra Burr must realize this as she rushes through the abridgment in hushed, inoffensive tones. The producers missed a great opportunity here. D.W.K. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Customer Reviews

Aren't all these reviews absolutely fascinating
In light of the fact that Ms. Hepburn has now been revealed as a lesbian whose affair with the gay Spencer Tracy was a big beard for the public, I find all these reviews objecting to any love relationship with John Ford because Spencer was her great love fascinating.

Barbara Leaming is a brilliant biographer. She somehow missed what William Mann et al. picked up on once Ms. Hepburn died - that is, that she, like everyone else in Hollywood's golden age was gay. If Hepburn was a lesbian, then Tracy was definitely gay. Gee, I wonder how Barbara missed that. Tsk tsk all that research, all that work and somehow that just never came up. She must not have talked to the right anonymous and inside sources. She probably depended on things like interviews with people who knew Hepburn, her private papers, studio documents, etc. She didn't know that in order to get info on Spencer Tracy, for instance, you have to go to secret gay flop houses.

As for John Ford - in a recent documentary about John Ford, we hear a tape recording between Ford and Katharine Hepburn made while he was very ill in which he tells her he loves her. Dan Ford was taping an encounter with them, went to get something in his car, and left the recorder running. The documentary states that Ford worshipped her (of course, you have to realize that Ford has now been outed as well). Since I head the tape recording, why should I believe any of you that there was no relationship? Was it love on Hepburn's part? I don't know. There was something, though.

Why people find all this endlessly fascinating, I have no idea, especially when one book contradicts the other. I'm supposed to believe that she and Spencer were gay, that Spencer was the only love of her life, that she was a big fat phony. Frankly, it's hard to believe anything.

I do, however, believe that Barbara Leaming is a wonderful writer and biographer. Her bios of Rita Hayworth and Orson Welles were excellent. I have no respect for James Robert Parrish, who is third rate, or people like William Mann who push forward their own agenda - as long, of course, that the person is dead. Wouldn't want a lawsuit now, would we.

Interesting and Enjoyable to Read
It may be truth or fiction, as other reviewers complained, but the book is written well and makes for a good read.

Total Fabrication
I wish I could give it a big fat zero but anyway...
The author is delusional and puts forth her own agenda totally ignoring facts. She has this unrequited love between John Ford and Katharine which only she has ever wrote about. Unfortunately since them other writers take it as truth.
Kate herself said in her "All About Me" documentary that despite what many thought she was never romantically involved with him. Yet according to this author this was the love of Kate's life when everyone knows it was without a doubt Spencer Tracy who this author totally deems a horrible human being.
A total BS book lets hope someone out there can write as close to the truth book on this great lady not this trashy drivel????