Display showcases many sides of Kate

By MICHAEL HAMNER
Observer Staff
Katharine Hepburn lived her life by her own standards, fiercely independent and seemingly ambivalent to the Hollywood “star machine.” Part of her art, however, was crafting a public persona that she called “The Creature” to appease her audiences.

“One Life: Kate, A Centennial Celebration,” is on exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery through June 1. It teases the viewer to explore the actress’s complex personality further, with displays of photographs, movie posters and memorabilia of Hepburn, the only actress to win four best actress Oscars.

Along with early family photos, promotional shots of Hepburn in many of her films and a video kiosk offering clips from several of her movies, the exhibition’s centerpiece is an intimate oil portrait of her by artist Everett Raymond Kinstler, who donated the painting to the museum after the actress’s death in 2003.

One display case holds a contract between Hepburn and officers of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for the movie rights to the play, “The Philadelphia Story.” The show, written expressly for Hepburn by her playwright-friend Philip Barry, was a smash hit on Broadway, according to biographer, William J. Mann, in “Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn.”

Mann wrote that Hepburn sought to buy the movie rights on the advice of her then-boyfriend Howard Hughes, not only as an investment, but to prevent MGM from casting another actress in the leading role. Hepburn didn’t have the $30,000 required to buy the rights, but for millionaire Hughes it was chump change. He purchased the rights and gave them to Hepburn as a gift.

The movie revived Hepburn’s career in Hollywood, according to Mann, and the contract was a bellwether for her — from that point forward she would be in control of her roles and her career.

The focal point of the room may be the Kinstler portrait, but the highlight is a waist-high rectangular display case that holds the actress’s four Oscar statuettes, from her earliest for the 1933 film “Morning Glory” to her final for the 1981 film “On Golden Pond.”

The Oscars seem to epitomize the multiple reincarnations of Hepburn into whatever “Creature” she chose to project to the public at that time of her life. From her early, almost immediate, success in Hollywood, through her “box office poison” period to the protective elderly mother-as-peacemaker figure in “On Golden Pond,” Hepburn was able to reinvent herself as an actress again and again, according to Mann, with each new era endearing herself more to the movie-going public.

Unlike her recent biographers, the exhibition only hints at Hepburn’s alleged bisexuality and complex heterosexual relationships, especially her long-term affair with her married co-star Spencer Tracy, with whom she made nine films. There is still enough tease factor to arouse the interest of moviegoers who wish to explore more of the complex life of an American cinema legend.

Home page image: Katharine Hepburn
By Everett Raymond Kinstler
Oil on canvas, 1982
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Everett Raymond Kinstler
© 1982 Everett Raymond Kinstler