Customer Reviews

Katharine Hepburn: The Untold Story (Advocate Life Stories)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

If you enjoy a book where in every so-called shocking statement or bit of innuendo is preceded or followed by "maybe" or "possibly", then you will like this book. Also if you like cut and paste jobs this is your book. If on the other hand you are looking for a well-written, well-researched book that actually tells you something worth knowing about Katharine Hepburn, then stay away from this one.
This book has one mission -- to try to convince the world that Kate was gay and since Parish can provide nothing more than rumor, gossip, and supposition in that area -- it is a miserable failure of a book and a waste of time and paper and ink.

Parish's efforts are nothing more than a re-hashing of everything you already know. It certainly isn't the "untold story" the book jacket promises. Clumsily written and boring, Parish should have enlisted the aid of a better editor. One case in point: a good editor would have checked facts and known there is no such place as Tavasoon (where he notes they filmed part of "The Lion in Winter"), the town is actually called Tarascon. This book is pure drivel. Don't bother wasting your money.

Parish's controversial thesis is that Hepburn manipulated her image in unexpected ways, hiding her affair with Tracy for many years while "leaking" it at the same time to a selected few, so that in the years after 1942, the whole of the film colony knew she was dating the married Tracy. And after his death, and the death of Louise his widow, Hepburn became more and more chatty about her big love. Parish notes that Hepburn is often the only source for many of her supposed heterosexual affairs, and that when she claimed to have cuddled up with Charles Boyer while making BREAK OF HEARTS, she is the only one who ever believed any of her story. What was the purpose of all these machinations? To divert attention from her real life sexual proclivities, which were for women.

In this respect she should have sent flowers to Garson Kanin, who publicized the Tracy affair in his tell-all book TRACY AND HEPBURN, instead of acting so frosty to Kanin and to his wife and collaborator, Ruth Gordon. After all, it was Kanin who got the word out that Hepburn was indeed a heterosexual woman, even a "back street" type of girl, which made her seem, well, not so weird to the general public.

All I can say is, it's an interesting thesis but if you ask me, not proven. Maybe she was in love with Elissa Landi, or Joy Bang, or Laura Harding, or poor old Phyllis, but I doubt it. She was in love primarily with herself. An accomplished actress, she taught the world that self-love is the most important value of all, and we all fell for it, under the cover of a New England drive for independence.

Parish is very good outlining the rivalry between Margaret Sullavan and Hepburn--but again, how do we know this was so? My own grandmother, who knew both women well, always insisted that there was no rivalry between them, and that they each admired the qualities in the other they lacked. Indeed when Margaret Sullavan died so young, Hepburn was crushed, not elated as Parish implies. She sent a huge bouquet of orange tiger lilies to Sullavan's services, and these were spread on the altar of the church.

I also appreciated his careful pen and ink portrait of Hope Williams, the Broadway actress on whom Hepburn modeled her lanky, independent and bisexual affect--Williams, forgotten today, played Linda Seton in HOLIDAY by Philip Barry on Broadway, while Hepburn studied her every move from the wings, for she was Hope Williams' understudy for the entire run of the play. Years later, of course, she was to play Linda herself in the flawed but worthwhile movie version.

PS, I don't believe that the aged monster Constance Collier ever had sex with either Paulette Goddard or Hepburn, as Parish hints on page 189, but isn't it pretty to think so?

Groundless, biased assertions couched in meanspirted prose. The author appears to really dislike Hepburn, and that is neither professional nor engaging for the reader. A good biographer should 1) be able to substantiate sweeping claims, especially about a subject's sexual life, and 2) maintain a neutral tone when writing about the subject, no matter how distasteful the biographer finds the actions of said subject. This author has done neither. Don't waste your time with this book even at the library.

Those of you expecting a well written account will be very disappointed by another ho hum biography of Hepburn . The subtitle of his book is An Untold Story but there is nothing new in this biography expect for endless speculation about Katharine's sexuality . I guess its hard to deal with such a complex issue well but if you don't have the skill don't do it . I knew the book was in trouble when Parrish pegged Katharine as a lesbian on the basis of a crush he had when she was 11 years old!!! More importantly the book does nothing to help us understand Hepburn . Its poorly written and relies heavily on Darwin Porter - stay clear of it

I was thrilled to find a new biography of Hepburn because she's such an intriguing personna. In this book, however, Parrish puts forth many rumors and hearsay as fact without bothering to back them up. This ruined what could have been an interesting bio for anyone curious about the Katharine Hepburn outside of the stage lots. Save your money and look elsewhere.

The books jacket says that it is well researched. In fact it is, but all the stuff about Kate and being bisexual is a matter of opinion. He never gives concrete information and uses what he does find he twist around to work in his favor. Although it is a good book for Kate facts, don't believe anything about her being bisexual.

Once again Amazon should provide the option of rating a book with zero stars since giving this book 1 star suggests that it has some small value. It doesn't.

The first thing to know about the book is that its publisher is a gay publishing company catering to gays. Second is that James Robert Parish has been around for many decades and somehow never got around to claiming that Katharine Hepburn was a Lesbian until now. Needless to say, Katharine Hepburn was not gay. The book provides no credible evidence that she was and, it appears, was written for this small gay publishing house for the benefit of it's readership who, it seems, are comforted by the idea that pratically everyone on the face of the earth was or is gay. Other than the offensive and erroneous portrayal of Hepburn as gay, the book just isn't very good. It's full of the factual and chronological errors that Parish's books are known for. By all means skip this book. If you are looking for good books about Katharine Hepburn, read her two books, Me, Stories of My life, and The Making of the African Queen. Also good are Garson Kanin's book, Tracy and Hepburn, and James Prideaux's book, Knowing Hepburn.

***UPDATE TO REVIEW***

A really thorough and well-researched biography of Hepburn has been issued, which you should check out if this material is of interest to you:
Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn

***ORIGINAL REVIEW ***
This type of journalism is generally problematic but something more important lies behind this particular subject. Parish zeroes in on a key observation about Hepburn in his introduction: "most of her public naively assumed that, because she seemed so forthright and down-to-earth about herself and the important people in her fascinating life, her words and deeds always could be accepted at face value." His purpose in offering yet another celebrity biography, in this case, is challenging something that few fans or followers of Hepburn had thought of: that, in fact, this seemingly honest and scrupulously trustworthy individual and role model was spinning tales.

If this were the biography of a lesser personality, the need to invade a life that was lived respectfully and privately could be seen as prurient and gossip-mongering. But Hepburn was a powerful cultural influence on a generation of Americans, portraying an ideal way to handle issues both on- and off-screen. Her gestures, attitude, philosophy and approach to life were observed and internalized by people around the world during tumultuous decades in history. She was one of the few public figures who remained famous and influential throughout the twentieth century - from the `30s through the `90s - and demonstrated how a self-sufficient individual could age from youth to maturity to seniority, in public and with grace. So the idea of exploring the truth of this individual's life, and specifically, the validity of the honesty with which she purported to live it, are as worthwhile as exploring the background of other influential political and historical figures. So the thesis is a valid one; it's the execution that's troublesome.

Hepburn was clearly smarter and more energetic than any of her biographers, and she maintained her secrets with the same powerful efficiency and completeness she lived her life with. While exhaustively researched and sourced, Parish's book is nonetheless forced to make observations positioned as questions based on already revealed public information. He examines Hepburn's public relationships with a number of women in excruciating detail, then posits his own interpretation, by way of a question, along the lines of "couldn't this be interpreted as a lesbian relationship?" Well, sure it could. But without evidence, it could also be just as Hepburn said it was, a close personal relationship without a sexual aspect.

It may be that Hepburn is still too hot a national treasure to have her secrets revealed. The people still alive who knew her are duty bound to keep those secrets, and so they should. Parish's point, that it's important to know someone who formed so much of our national identity, is valid, but may have to wait for more time to pass. Though when it does, those with any factual evidence might be dead themselves. With Hepburn, as with many fascinating character of the twentieth century, the "truth" as we know it today - a tabloid driven, rabid hunger for clearly understood, unvarnished facts, with an almost willful desire to tear down the imagery of the past - may never be revealed to us. Worse, it may be an ambiguous one, something complicated and spirited, that we are simply too jaded and perhaps too hungry to understand. In the end, Hepburn's life may in fact be none of our business, but the truth of what she said is still valid: we have to make the best of ourselves, each of us, do what we like, and live our own lives to the fullest.

In his biography of Katharine Hepburn, author James Robert Parish takes a position some persons may object to: he deals with the possibility that this legendary performer may have been bisexual or even homosexual. Some persons won't like what he has to say. Not every book is designed for every reader. Folks who would like to explore the possibility of Katharine Hepburn's being bisexual or homosexual should read this book and then draw their own conclusions. However, anyone who has determined in advance that she definitely could not have been gay-or who would be offended by the issue's even being raised-really should avoid it. For the vast majority who lie in between these two poles, give the book a try. It does present enough material to cause one at least to consider the possibility. Remember, Shakespeare advised us, "Give every man thy ear." I personally feel that everyone's opinion is worth exploring. The book is well worth reading because Mr. Parish does provide material that has not yet been printed elsewhere, and he has compiled his data in an interesting fashion with some key insights that I personally found enlightening. As the book is published by the Advocate (with their name featured prominently above the title on the dust jacket), I would assume that it is quite possible Mr. Parish was commissioned by the Advocate to write this book to fulfill their preconceived agenda. One thing is certain, Miss Hepburn was a master at manipulating her own image. Whatever her private feelings might have been, no printed material can be relied upon to say anything definitively about her sexuality. All points of view are valuable. My opinion is that James Robert Parish's Katharine Hepburn, the Untold Story is worth reading.