Post by guesttoo on Jul 23, 2005 10:25:08 GMT -5
Dan Ford letter:
To the Editor:
I am the grandson of film director John Ford and his principal biographer to date (Pappy: The Life of John Ford, 1989). I have also participated in several documentary film projects on the man and am considered by some to be an authority on his life and work. It's probably no surprise, then, that I take exception to Barbara Leaming's book "Katharine Hepburn" and to Janet Maslin's gushing review (April 16).
In fact "Katharine Hepburn" is a cheap, exploitive work of fiction, a Gothic novel that pretends to be a biography. It's a romance novel that uses well known and therefore marketable names for its characters. Indeed, as Ms. Maslin writes, there is 'real depth and drama" in Ms Leaming's story telling. Unfortunately, there is not much truth.
I'll confine my specific objections to what Ms. Leaming writes about John Ford. I believe she has greatly exaggerated the degree and intensity of the Ford-Hepburn relationship: she has used it as one of several convenient plot devises to add drama, mystery and a new twist to what is otherwise another ho-hum biography covering well covered turf. (If I'm not mistaken Ms. Leaming's book is the 20th biography of Katharine Hepburn.)
Ms. Leaming's basis for describing the Ford-Hepburn relationship, as she states in her notes on sources for Chapters 16 through 18, is the correspondence between the two parties found among the Ford papers at the Lily Library at Indiana University. In fact these letters do not substantiate her claim that John Ford and Katharine Hepburn had an intense affair in the mid 1930s. There are only six letters from this period. most of which are chatty, vague, inconclusive gag letters between friends. Only one can be construed as romantic.
Ms. Leaming also greatly exaggerates John Ford's drinking patterns. I can't imagine how the falling-down drunk that she writes about possibly found time to make 130 films, win six academy awards and serve his country in two wars, achieving the rank of admiral and receive three honorary doctorates if he was continuously drunk as he is depicted in this book. Further I can't imagine what Ms. Hepburn would have seen in such or person or what studio would have hired him.
Most upsetting to me personally is that this writer seems to go out of her way to trash John Ford's widow, my grandmother Mary Ford, a woman whom she has never met and who has been dead for 15 years. Ms. Leaming attacks her at every opportunity, calling her "shrill and argumentative" and "monstrous". In fact, Mary Ford was both an elegant woman and a stabilizing factor in John Ford's life. She was instrumental in making him the man he was.
Dan Ford
Northridge, CA
To the Editor:
I am the grandson of film director John Ford and his principal biographer to date (Pappy: The Life of John Ford, 1989). I have also participated in several documentary film projects on the man and am considered by some to be an authority on his life and work. It's probably no surprise, then, that I take exception to Barbara Leaming's book "Katharine Hepburn" and to Janet Maslin's gushing review (April 16).
In fact "Katharine Hepburn" is a cheap, exploitive work of fiction, a Gothic novel that pretends to be a biography. It's a romance novel that uses well known and therefore marketable names for its characters. Indeed, as Ms. Maslin writes, there is 'real depth and drama" in Ms Leaming's story telling. Unfortunately, there is not much truth.
I'll confine my specific objections to what Ms. Leaming writes about John Ford. I believe she has greatly exaggerated the degree and intensity of the Ford-Hepburn relationship: she has used it as one of several convenient plot devises to add drama, mystery and a new twist to what is otherwise another ho-hum biography covering well covered turf. (If I'm not mistaken Ms. Leaming's book is the 20th biography of Katharine Hepburn.)
Ms. Leaming's basis for describing the Ford-Hepburn relationship, as she states in her notes on sources for Chapters 16 through 18, is the correspondence between the two parties found among the Ford papers at the Lily Library at Indiana University. In fact these letters do not substantiate her claim that John Ford and Katharine Hepburn had an intense affair in the mid 1930s. There are only six letters from this period. most of which are chatty, vague, inconclusive gag letters between friends. Only one can be construed as romantic.
Ms. Leaming also greatly exaggerates John Ford's drinking patterns. I can't imagine how the falling-down drunk that she writes about possibly found time to make 130 films, win six academy awards and serve his country in two wars, achieving the rank of admiral and receive three honorary doctorates if he was continuously drunk as he is depicted in this book. Further I can't imagine what Ms. Hepburn would have seen in such or person or what studio would have hired him.
Most upsetting to me personally is that this writer seems to go out of her way to trash John Ford's widow, my grandmother Mary Ford, a woman whom she has never met and who has been dead for 15 years. Ms. Leaming attacks her at every opportunity, calling her "shrill and argumentative" and "monstrous". In fact, Mary Ford was both an elegant woman and a stabilizing factor in John Ford's life. She was instrumental in making him the man he was.
Dan Ford
Northridge, CA