Katharine Hepburn starred in some of the best films Hollywood has ever made, but the film industry has thus far only made her an accessory in stories about men, namely those of producer David O. Selznick in The Scarlett O’Hara Story and millionaire Howard Hughes in The Aviator.
A new independent film aims to finally give the screen legend her own spotlight. Currently titled “Kate,” the project will contrast two Hepburns — the ambitious 25-year-old Connecticut native who won over Hollywood with her patrician, pants-wearing ways, and the cantankerous 80-year-old icon looking back on the sacrifices she made for her career.
The biopic will be based on William J. Mann’s Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn and directed by British filmmaker Clare Beavan, who also helmed a biopic about Rebecca novelist Daphne Du Maurier.
Over the course of her career, Hepburn was nominated a dozen times for a Best Actress Oscar and won four times.
“This is not the Kate Hepburn of public legend, including all those Tracy-Hepburn pictures, but rather the much more fascinating and complex private woman,” producer Richard Akel said. “In reality, she was far more interesting and ultimately more inspiring than the myth she created.”
“Kate” will compete with another biopic of the Bringing Up Baby actress, one that focuses on her relationship with Spencer Tracy.
If you can’t wait until “Kate” makes it to the big screen, I highly recommend Karina Longworth’s account of Hepburn’s early years in Los Angeles and her single-minded devotion to her career in the (fantastic) You Must Remember This podcast.
[via Variety]
