Biographies - good and bad

[smith]

I think the issue is the nature of the relationship between Ford and Katharine . There was definitely a relationship judging by Katharine's letters to Ford and people who knew then believed they were having an affair .

I personally don't believe that - probably Ford's inability to make a decision ended the relationship

[Judy]

I do not believe that Ford and Hepburn had an affair.

Once again, though, you take a major leap from the doubtful assertions by some that she influenced his every movie to the equally doubtful conclusion that because they didn't sleep together they didn't have a good friendship.

Glad that they confided in you about the nature of their friendship so that you could state so unequivocally that it was of so little importance to either.

[Cate]

Ah... the battle of the brains. I love debates. Please continue ;D
Not that my two cents matters because I don't have a fraction of the Kate knowledge under my belt that you do... but does it really matter whether or not Ford and Kate had a relationship? Really... is the debate more about people falsely stating the facts or is it that we are actually that interested in Kate's love affair -- or lack of -- with John Ford? Being a biographer of someone who kept her life extremely private would be difficult and therefore the only information he or she could use would be the things other people claim happened. It is practically impossible to know for sure what happened between Kate and whatever lover she had at whatever point in time unless something materializes like letters between Kate herself and the person in question (and even then, how do you prove they're real?). I don't think there's anyone who can write a biography on Katharine Hepburn without someone saying it didn't happen. And writing just the solid facts would be boring. What's the point of reading it if you already know everything? This whole biography thing is funny because we're so enamored with Katharine Hepburn that we want to invade every scrap of privacy yet that's what she fought most of her life to guard. Granted she did have an autobiography -- but only the stuff she wanted us to know

[smith]

Its more about people misstating the facts - after all Leaming wrote an entire book alleging that Ford was the love of Katharine's life . However if you read about Ford he was a mean - son of a bitch - I think the similarities between Ford and Spencer are pretty superficial . My impression of Spencer is that he was a guy who really liked women and not just in a sexual way . I think Ford was more conflicted about a whole lot of things

[guesttoo]

sam said:

I do not believe that Ford and Hepburn had an affair.

Once again, though, you take a major leap from the doubtful assertions by some that she influenced his every movie to the equally doubtful conclusion that because they didn't sleep together they didn't have a good friendship.

Glad that they confided in you about the nature of their friendship so that you could state so unequivocally that it was of so little importance to either.

I think Kate and Ford had a very fine friendship that lasted for years. She said they did. I don't think she was his muse and I don't think they had an affair. As for the former, there is absolutely no evidence to support such a complicated theory, and as to the latter, both Ford and Hepburn said it didn't happen.

The idea that Kate and Ford had a secret and soul wrenching love affair originated in the writing of Peter Bogdanovich who talked to the same source as Leaming, Orson Welles. Welles was also the fellow who started the 'Spencer had venereal disease' story. Welles was a true liar. The problem with Bogdanovich and Leaming is that they took what he said seriously. Kate later corrected them as did, Ford, himself. The story has hung around in the various biographies as such stories often do. How many times have you read that Spencer had a venereal disease?

The Mary Kate story was started by Bogdanovich. It was pure speculation on his part. Neither Kate nor Ford ever confirmed it. It too has taken on a life of its own. Maureen O'Hara, who was actually around at the time, offered a perfectly logical and much more sound explanation of where the name came from. However, now that all those Ford books have been written, I imagine the Mary Kate story from those books will keep being reported as fact over and over again.

[Cate]

The Leaming book was one that I never got into. It was more like, read a few pages and put it down... then read some more and then never get around to finishing it ..book. Now I want to read it just because of this apparent controversy!

How many of Kate's biographers actually met/knew her besides Berg?

[Judy]

First you said: The Ford relationship just wasn't that important to either Ford or Hepburn.

This statement is what prompted my response because it's just not true.

And you apparently agree because now you say: I think Kate and Ford had a very fine friendship that lasted for years.

I'm getting dizzy.

Did you see that I agreed with you and wrote that I do not believe they had an affair? I said so in the very first sentence. It is, however, somewhat amusing to me that here you use Kate's own denial as partial proof, since you tend not to believe her about just about everything else. But no matter. I'm glad you believe her. I believe her, too.

And I said that the idea that she was his muse was doubtful, meaning - probably not so.

But I also said that to leap from NOT believing they had an affair and NOT believing she was his muse to NOT believing they were good friends - and to state it so assuredly - is one giant step for mankind. Meaning - you can't possibly know what the friendship meant to them, so your initial statement that it was not important to either seemed odd. And simply not true.

Especially in light of evidence to the contrary. NOT evidence of an affair. But evidence of a friendship.

That's all I was saying....

Oh, and by the way...I never said a word about the Mary Kate tale.

[guesttoo]

catherine said:

The Leaming book was one that I never got into. It was more like, read a few pages and put it down... then read some more and then never get around to finishing it ..book. Now I want to read it just because of this apparent controversy!

How many of Kate's biographers actually met/knew her besides Berg?

The people who wrote books about Kate who actually were close to her are Garson Kanin, Berg and James Prideaux. The Kanin and Prideaux books are both very good because they restricted their books to things they witnessed or had personal knowledge of. Berg put into his book a bunch of materials he borrowed from other books and speculations which have no basis in fact. His book is mostly rubbish. The other biographies of Kate are mediocre to very poor. I can't recommend any of them. The Leaming book is especially bad. It's not worth reading.

[Cate]

I didn't think Berg's book was rubbish. Perhaps embellished/biased but not rubbish. What exactly did he state that wasn't true or just speculation? The part I liked most about the book was his stories about spending time with Kate at Fenwick or in New York. Alas... he could have lied about that as well. What exactly makes Kanin and Prideaux trustworthy? The only thing I can think of is that they published their books during Kate's lifetime.

[guesttoo]

catherine said:

I didn't think Berg's book was rubbish. Perhaps embellished/biased but not rubbish. What exactly did he state that wasn't true or just speculation? The part I liked most about the book was his stories about spending time with Kate at Fenwick or in New York. Alas... he could have lied about that as well. What exactly makes Kanin and Prideaux trustworthy? The only thing I can think of is that they published their books during Kate's lifetime.

Where to begin with Berg's book. I'll let Liz Smith have her say. New York Post August 3, 2003:

"WANT TO READ one of the funniest things ever? Go online to The Hartford Courant for July 27, the column of Colin McEnroe, titled "Me, Kate and Me" - a satirical takeoff on the Scott Berg "memoir" about Katharine Hepburn.

McEnroe's satirical irony rises to James Thurber and S.J. Perelman heights. We can't do it justice in our small space. But, here is McEnroe, mocking the way Berg writes about his so-called relationship with the actress: "That's the way she was. Utterly insistent on her own rules. I'm a bit that way myself, which is why Kate Hepburn came to worship and depend on me."

Along with the trenchant critical review by Michiko Kakutani in The New York Times, McEnroe nails Berg for the presumptuous presentation of himself as Hepburn's only confidant. He dispatches the turgid, boring book that came out as a result. In my own humble opinion, Berg's work is self-promoting fakery, and Hepburn would have despised it and his betrayal of her friendship."

To begin with, Scott Berg is the only person who has ever said that his book is in any way an authorized by KH book. None of her family and friends have said it. If Kate had authorized a biography, there's no question that she expected a real biography similar to the ones he did on Lindbergh and Sam Goldwyn. The book that he wrote is an insult.

The things wrong with the book:

1) The book is such a vanity project. It's really all about Scott Berg with a bunch of other people other than Katharine Hepburn included;

2) The biographical materials in the book have obviously been cribbed from other books. Berg seems to imply that Kate was telling him the story of her life and he was writing it down. That's clearly not true.

Look, for instance, on pages 230 and 231 of the books.

After her Australian tour . . . . Hepburn felt ready to come home. "I suppose I had to prove something -- to myself," Kate later reflected. "I felt I had reached out as an actress and felt more fulfilled. And so I wanted to reach out to Spence. I knew that he had to help himself, but I also knew that I could help him too -- once I had fortified myself." Having been more apart than together in the last few years, Hepburn privately vowed from then on to share their lives as much as the vagaries of show business would allow. Having climbed her own person summit, she went on location with Tracy to the French Alps, where he filmed The Mountain with Robert Wagner. . .

The book then goes on to say that she filmed The Rainmaker while Tracy was finishing The Mountain at Paramount.

Too bad the previous is totally wrong. KH was in Australia from May to November, 1955. Tracy went to the French Alps in August of that year to film The Mountain. Kate wasn't anywhere near the continent of Europe much less in the French Alps. Also, when she got back from Australia in November, 1955, she went home for a few days and then went to London to film The Iron Petticoat. Berg got that wrong too. Oh, and Tracy didn't go to England while she filmed The Iron Petticoat. And finally, KH filmed The Rainmaker in the late summer and early fall of 1956, several months after Berg has her filming it. The reason Berg gets this all wrong is because he didn't get the information from Kate and he didn't do any original research. What he did was crib this stuff from Anne Edward's biography of Kate. How does that make him the "authorized" biographer of Katharine Hepburn? The "I had something to prove" quote is undoubtedly not something Kate told Berg as well. If it shows up in any of the other books about KH, it's fabricated. Berg does this sort of stuff throughout the book. He makes it appear that he's writing down what Kate told him but it's absolutely clear that she didn't.

3) His book has a totally inaccurate and negative portayal of Spencer Tracy. Tracy was an abuser and Kate was an enabler? Give me a break. Does anyone believe that Kate would have approved of his portrayal of Tracy?

[karina]

Point(s) taken, but his book makes for interesting reading anyway. Besides, many biographies - in particular those concerning people in the entertainment industry - have to be taken with a pinch of salt and I don't think any intelligent person would ever assume they're 100% accurate. By their very nature they're only a 3rd party interpretation of what the author has seen, heard, witnessed or read of the life & times of the subject in question, and the information then has to be presented in such a way as to appeal to the general public. I mean no-one ever actually lives the life of another person and there's so much about Kate we will never know or that can never be proven one way or the other. True, you supported your post with certain historical film facts, but that's not actually the most interesting part of such bios, as such info. can generally be checked elsewhere.

I have to agree though that the Kanin & Prideaux bios are far superior, but then Berg has confessed to writing less than objectively & from a fan's point of view. Besides, who can fault anyone who says:

"She was about 10 percent more than what people thought," Berg said. "She was 10 percent smarter, 10 percent more beautiful."

[guesttoo]

But why does Berg even now make such a point about the book being the one Kate wanted him to write? And why include all that biographical material that he obviiously never discussed with Kate or even bothered to research? The answer for the latter is that if you took the bogus biographical material out and all the non-Kate stuff out, he wouldn't have a book long enough to sell as a book.

[Cate]

Maybe because Berg's ego gets in the way? He does talk about himself a little more than I'd like but as we all know -- he didn't intend to write an objective, standard biography. But I don't remember reading so much non-Kate information that it would have made its own little book. That's ridiculous. I definitely wouldn't have finished reading it if that were the case. The book is a great read even if it isn't a completely accurate account -- as I said before, the stories he told of his meetings with her (if those are even true) were the highlights of the book. At least he didn't just pull stories out of his ass in Porter-fashion.

[Cate]

I just need to vent. I ordered the Prideaux book over a week ago... and it's STILL not here!

[Cate]

I just got the Prideaux book (finally!) and I'm loving it. I stopped at 1972 JUST to come on this forum and see what I've missed -- I've been away for what, 12 hours, so I was sure I missed a party. Anyway, I've been cracking up the whole time. The part that begins, "Kate hated any kind of distracting noise." Oh my God. Hilarious! Phyllis is rustling newspapers in the other room when Kate explodes. "Stop that, Phyllis!" But, being the humanitarian that she was, she gets up out of her chair to help someone who sounds lost by the way the engine keeps stopping and starting. She decides the turn up the hill is too difficult so she and the author trek ("I felt like a child trying to keep up with his mother" -- Kate was 60 ish and wasn't winded at the end yet he was) to the top of the hill to see if the address is the one he is looking for. It isn't, so she stops two people, the first one she gives up on because she can't read his map but he stays to watch the show. The second is joined -- whether he likes it or not -- by Kate in his passenger seat after asking if he's heading in that direction. I guess I don't need to recount the entire event. If you've read it, you already know. If you haven't, read it!