Review: Me: Stories of My Life

Me: Stories of My Life by Katharine Hepburn
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The tone of this memoir is very conversational, reading like the transcript of one side of an interview. Most of the time this works very well. Occasionally, it feels like pointless rambling. The addition of an unproduced script by Hepburn about an actress picking up a car based on experience she had with writer William Rose feels like padding. Much better are here memories of and opinions on specific films she was in, even if they are often very brief. For instance, this opinion of Toyah Willcox who took a film role opposite Katharine Hepburn in the made-for-television film The Corn Is Green, directed by George Cukor:

We got the girl too. A girl walked in by the name of Toyah Wilcox. Five feet tall. Tiny waist. Big bosom. Skin like the inside of a shell. Eyes...

Oh-did I tell you about the boy's teeth? They are TEETH. He should pull them all out and sell them to the Arabs. Gorgeous! Anyway, Toyah's eyes are wide apart. And full of thoughts. Wicked thoughts. Suggesting so much. And so much fun too. Loves life and ... well, she read the part with me. George and I howled.

...and this portrait of John Wayne:

Rooster Cogburn

John Wayne is the hero of the thirties and forties and most of the fifties. Before the creeps came creeping in. Before, in the sixties, the male hero slid right down into the valley of the weak and the misunderstood. Before the women began drop- ping any pretense to virginity into the gutter. With a dis- regard for truth which is indeed pathetic. And unisex was born. The hair grew long and the pride grew short. And we were off to the anti-hero and -heroine.

John Wayne has survived all this. Even into the seventies. He is so tall a tree that the sun must shine on him whatever the tangle in the jungle below.

From head to toe he is all of a piece. Big head. Wide blue eyes. Sandy hair. Rugged skin-lined by living and fun and character. Not by just rotting away. A nose not too big, not too small. Good teeth. A face alive with humor. Good humor I should say, and a sharp wit. Dangerous when roused. His shoulders are broad-very. His chest massive- very. When I leaned against him (which I did as often as possible, I must confess I am reduced to such innocent pleasures), thrilling. It was like leaning against a great tree. His hands so big. Mine, which are big too, seemed to disappear. Good legs. No seat. A real man's body.

And the base of this incredible creation. A pair of small sensitive feet. Carrying his huge frame as though it were a feather. Light of tread. Springy. Dancing. Pretty feet.

Very observing. Very aware. Listens. Concentrates. Witty slant. Ready to laugh. To be laughed at. To answer. To stick his neck out. Funny. Outrageous. Spoiled. Self-indulgent. Tough. Full of charm. Knows it. Uses it. Disregards it. With an alarming accuracy. Not much gets past him.
...

Politically he is a reactionary. He suffers from a point of view based entirely on his own experience. He was sur- rounded in his early years in the motion picture business by people like himself. Self-made. Hard-working. Independent. Of the style of man who blazed the trails across our country. Reached out into the unknown. People who were willing to live or die entirely on their own independent judgment. Jack Ford, the man who first brought Wayne into the movies, was cut from the same block of wood. Fiercely independent.

They seem to have no patience and no understanding of the more timid and dependent type of person. Pull your own freight. This is their slogan. Sometimes I don't think that they realize that their own load was attached to a very powerful engine. They don't need or want protection. Total personal responsibility. They dish it out. They take it. Life has dealt Wayne some severe blows. He can take them. He has shown it. He doesn't lack self-discipline. He dares to walk by himself. Run. Dance. Skip. Walk. Crawl through life. He has done it all. Don't pity me, please.

The shorter recollections are more focused. The longer ones tend to drift off into inane trivialities, IMO. These drifts seems to be concentrated in the last quarter of the book which makes me feel the manuscript missed the care and attention of a good editor. The resulting hodge-podge is a potpourri of pithy to charming observations soaked with discursive maundering.

Sincere love recalling here about her Spencer Tracy. 'Tis a bit sad how one-sided it may have been:

I loved Spencer Tracy. He and his interests and his demands came first.

This was not easy for me because I was definitely a me me me person.

It was a unique feeling that I had for S.T. I would have done anything for him. My feelings-how can you describe them?-the door between us was always open. There were no reservations of any kind.

...

I have no idea how Spence felt about me. I can only say I think that if he hadn't liked me he wouldn't have hung around. As simple as that. He wouldn't talk about it and I didn't talk about it. We just passed twenty-seven years together in what was to me absolute bliss.

It is called LOVE.

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