Miss goddess to you!
Okeydoke, sit back and read but be kind and avert your eyes from any typos. I did this really fast and have not checked it:
Below are two excerpts I transcribed. One is from the Brownlow bio of Lean and the other is from Stephen Silverman's book about Lean. They contradict each other in small ways to varying degree, but bottom line is that from all accounts - even, ultimately, Miss Hepburn's - the nut did indeed go swimmin' in the canal!
FROM KEVIN BROWNLOW'S DAVID LEAN, A BIOGRAPHY:The most famous scene in
SUMMERTIME is the one in which Hepburn, filming with her 16mm movie camera, steps back to obtain a wider angle and falls into the canal. Hepburn later blamed an eye infection on the polluted water.
Peter Newbrook dismisses the idea. "First of all, she only did it once. Michael Korda has written in his book that Katie had repeatedly done that scene, but it had to be done once only.
"David and I selected the exact spot where she would fall in. This was adjacent to some steps, so it would be easier for her to be helped out. Having pinpointed the spot, the art department arranged with Council officials for the construction gang to lay in some very large tarpaulins so that when she fell in she would never fall in to any of the silt and filth that lay on the bottom of the canal.
"The fall was covered by two cameras. However, after the initial fall, she came out of the canal, was wrapped in towels and waited while the camera was repositioned for the various other shots in the sequence. She went back in the water several times, not by falling in but by walking down the steps.
"If anybody thinks that Katie took offence at going into the water I can tell you that nearly every night she would swim in the Grand Canal. We used to go back to our hotel in a private motorboat – she had Constance Collier, the actress, who was her coach and companion, with her for the whole trip. We had a lot of social evenings together. She used to wear a light safari thing and nothing underneath. She would stop the boat and tell the driver (in her strident but grammatically correct Italian) not to look and jumped off the stern of the boat, swam around for a while and then came back on board. This little pastime only took place after sunset, never in broad daylight. And she did it not once, but time after time, so that's all a myth about it being the company's fault for making her go in the water, to catch whatever she's alleged to have caught."
As Hepburn said to Stephen Silverman when he confronted her with this fact: "I am a fool."
FROM STEPHEN SILVERMAN'S DAVID LEAN (for which Kate wrote the Introduction):
This is a part where Silverman reports on Michal Korda's version of events and then has some quotes from Kate."The health authorities of Venice were anxious to avoid the scandal that would be caused by Miss Hepburn's succumbing to typhoid, skin diseases, or dysentery, and suggested that the scene be shot in a swimming pool. Miss Hepburn herself, having taken a good look at the water in the canal, was anything but enthusiastic about the prospects, but neither Vincent nor David Lean was willing to compromise with realism."
When chlorine chemicals were poured into the water, Korda said, bubbles erupted, sending suds everywhere within camera range. Just when it appeared the day's shooting would have to be abandoned, Vincent Korda suggested that a wind machine blow clear the area. Michael Korda remembered Lean framing the scene with his hands.
Came time to walk the quay backward into the water, Hepburn was already smeared in Vaseline in order to protect her skin.
"I thought of everything except putting drops in my eyes," she says, "and I've had one of those terrible infections in my eyes ever since. Staphylococcus. And when you've got rusty hair and freckles as I do, the eyelids are weak."
How many times did Hepburn have to take the plunge?
She flashes Churchill's Victory sign. "Twice," she says. "The first time, somebody rushed in and tried to rescue me. Ruined the take. Can you imagine?" The would-be hero was a passing gondolier.
"I know Kate blames me for her eyes," says Lean, "but it's just not true. She was absolutely mad. Every day when we broke for lunch, she would make some remark about the terrible way she thought I was going to spend the hour, and then ff she would go with members of the crew rowing ahead of her in a boat to clear a path. She'd be swimming the canals."
When Lean's claim is repeated to Hepburn, she goes silent, then takes both hands, clasps them firmly under her chin, and declares sotto voce: "I am a fool."
[Judy's closing remark: I just
lurrrrrve her!]