|
Post by smith on Nov 30, 2005 3:06:45 GMT -5
Was Katharine Hepburn a lesbian? That's the question framing this otherwise rather pointless cut-and-paste biography of the star. Early on, Parish (Jet Li, 2002) examines Hepburn's relationship with her brother Tom. With little concrete evidence, Parish is left to speculate. He draws inferences as well about Hepburn's relationships with several women, including Laura Harding, Irene Mayer Selznick and Hepburn's longtime companion, Phyllis Wilbourn. During Hepburn's early days in Hollywood, she and Harding shared a house, leaving Hepburn's bisexual husband, Ludlow Ogden Smith, back East. But again lacking hard evidence, Parish can say only that Hepburn may have been a lesbian. His repeated implication—that because Hepburn consorted with lesbians, she, too, may have been a lesbian—ought to annoy gay and straight readers alike.
|
|
|
Post by Cate on Nov 30, 2005 13:43:02 GMT -5
Oh goody! Another Darwin Porter! It was printed by The Advocate -- a gay and lesbian magazine. Of course they're going to speculate.
|
|
|
Post by Cate on Nov 30, 2005 13:48:49 GMT -5
I found this review:
Author James Robert Parish details how Hepburn spun her relationship with billionaire Howard Hughes to appear to be a romance, when in fact it wasn’t, and most explosively reveals what caused Hepburn to accept a masochistic, platonic relationship with alcoholic, bisexual actor Spencer Tracy, and to allow it to be characterized as one of the “great loves of the twentieth century.”
Extensive research and interviews with numerous friends, journalists, and acquaintances separate myth from fact to reveal the real, sometimes conflicted, frustratingly complicated, and always amazing woman behind the painstakingly self-crafted image.
;D So funny.
|
|
|
Post by smith on Nov 30, 2005 14:33:01 GMT -5
The idea of Howard Hughes having a platonic relationship with a woman especially Katharine is just laughable .
I deliberately haven't posted most of the reviews but one of the most hilarious was then the author was complaining that Katharine's friends didn't want to talk to him .
And unfortunately most of the reivewers haven't picked up on the sexism and the use of insulting stereotypes in this book . In one section Katharine is described as driving an unfeminine station wagon and in another passage he claimed that Katharine did not go through the typical boy crazy stage that most young women experience (at 16) with the insinuation that she must therefore be gay ?? And then he tells us that Katharine shock horror at the age of 21 was still a virgin - that must mean she was drawn to a bisexual or lesbian lifestyle ( whatever that means) !!
Judy has the right idea - put this book out with the garbage
|
|
|
Post by Judy on Nov 30, 2005 15:47:34 GMT -5
I found this review: Author James Robert Parish details how Hepburn spun her relationship with billionaire Howard Hughes to appear to be a romance, when in fact it wasn’t, and most explosively reveals what caused Hepburn to accept a masochistic, platonic relationship with alcoholic, bisexual actor Spencer Tracy, and to allow it to be characterized as one of the “great loves of the twentieth century.”
Extensive research and interviews with numerous friends, journalists, and acquaintances separate myth from fact to reveal the real, sometimes conflicted, frustratingly complicated, and always amazing woman behind the painstakingly self-crafted image. ;D So funny. Yeah, C - Funny like a crutch....Clearly this was one of the many reviews written by either Parish himself, his publisher or one of his friends. (I know someone who wrote one of the positive reviews; wrote it at the behest of the author who is a friend of this person.) Parish and The Advocate should be ashamed of themselves for publishing such unsubstantiated crap. Of course, they are not ashamed of themselves. They say SHE created the myth?!? I say that compared to THESE myth makers, she's a rank amateur. And she's too dead to do anything about it. Scummy, oportunistic horse manure. Sorry to beat around the bush :-) I was out sick yesterday and someone I know actually left a copy of the book for me on my desk - as a gift.....Should I use it to wrap today's garbage or yesterday's? Judy
|
|
|
Post by Shaun on Nov 30, 2005 16:51:09 GMT -5
Let your garbage sit out for a week and let it get real disgusting...and then wrap it in it
|
|
|
Post by Judy on Nov 30, 2005 18:56:08 GMT -5
Let your garbage sit out for a week and let it get real disgusting...and then wrap it in it LOL. Good idea. Judy
|
|
|
Post by Cate on Dec 18, 2005 23:16:50 GMT -5
So, Judy. Did you read the book or use it as ... garbage wrap ... ? ;D
|
|
|
Post by Judy on Dec 19, 2005 9:21:57 GMT -5
So, Judy. Did you read the book or use it as ... garbage wrap ... ? ;D Hi, Catherine: I suppose it would behoove me- - as a longtime fan of KH's --to read everything that's out there about her. And in the days before Leaming, that's what I did. But since Leaming and Edwards and Lombardo and Porter, et al - in other words, in the days since it became the fashion to trash her life - and Spencer Tracy's - I've decided that I don't have to clutter my mind with the stuff. So I didn't read Porter and I won't read Parrish. No need to be MISinformed with bad books. I HAVE flipped through them. And that's all one really needs to do in order to understand their purpose. Currently, the Parrish book is at the bottom of a file cabinet in my office, and I can feel comfort in knowing that I didn't pay a red cent for it. Nor did the person who gave it to me. Actually, it was the publisher who paid for it by sending a review copy in the hope that I'd give it space in the magazine I work for. The publisher was mistaken. Judy
|
|
|
Post by Cate on Dec 19, 2005 14:09:05 GMT -5
Hmm... Good thinking, Judy. Sounds like the perfect place for it. I still would have read it (because I like to read everything I get my hands on) but in thinking about it, I'm sure I would confuse certain things from that book with things that really happened! So perhaps it's a good thing that no one in my town sells it. What sort of magazine do you work for?
|
|
|
Post by smith on Dec 19, 2005 14:22:21 GMT -5
The book has nothing to say about Katharine and has no redeeming features at all . Its particularly upsetting to me how the book denigrates Mrs and Mr Hepburn and it has some really weird psychological mumbo jumbo . Avoid at all costs
|
|
|
Post by Cate on Dec 19, 2005 19:57:27 GMT -5
So you read it smith? ;D
|
|
|
Post by Shaun on Dec 19, 2005 20:13:14 GMT -5
Judy I haven't read the Porter book either. I don't know nearly as much about Kate as you do, but I do know trash when I see it, or hear about it. Thanks to you and smith, I don't have to wade through all the garbage books to get to the good stuff.
|
|
|
Post by dreamer on Oct 31, 2006 17:59:07 GMT -5
Judy you are so right - so I had to make copycat a bit - hope you excuse me ;D I got it as a gift from a dear friend, who didn't know about Parish -thinking she gave me a nice present - I did only surfed around and got very disapointed the way to treat a person (no matter who it is) - didn't want to have such things on my mind/the seamen to grow, which I think is the only reason for such books - so actually the book is today behind the other books in the shelves - want to forget that I have it
|
|