Beautifully written with a few flaws

books:

	• Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn William J. Mann Henry Holt and Co., 2006 - 656 pages average customer review:based on 44 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A Gay Woman's View!

This book is better than most previous books on Katharine Hepburn as it does reveal more about her, than they have. Her relationship with Spencer and her affairs with women ect.

However the most annoying thing about this book is the author's view that Kate is "transgender" he constantly tries to push this view. Instead of just presenting the facts and leaving it up to the reader make their own mind up, there is too much amateur psychology.

He is great at writing about gay men, he clearly knows that subject, but seems to have a very poor understanding of gay women.

He seems to think only men can really be gay (if you have read his other book "Behind the Screen: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood, 1910-1969" you'll know what I mean, he even calls Lilyan Tashman in to question, who is widely known to have been a lesbian). He believes every man is but doubts every woman. If you've read the interview he gave to advocate magazine you'll see what I mean, he says Spence is gay, but questions Kate just as he does in his previous book. Every man is, every woman isn't, there is something very odd or chauvinistic about this view.

Whilst she (Kate) may have or may not have slept with a bloke or two (most lesbians have) that doesn't necessarily mean she is bisexual. Gay women are generally more discrete than gay men anyway.

He seems to think that lesbian women don't have sex drives either and just sit down and talk of a night, even though later on in the book he says about how Kate asked Scotty (a friend of Cukors who is a male prostitute and a sort of male madam) to find her a "friend to go hiking", did he really think she just wanted to go "hiking" with this friend. It's just not consistent with his view that she wasn't really interested in sex, but just liked women as friends, same goes for the odd masseuse thing.

Also He seems to think that if women wear trousers, or are not typically "feminine" they are "transgender".
Many gay women as young girls dress up in "boys" clothes and do role play of a sort. I personally know many people who have done so, I myself have, and it doesn't make us "transgender".
Also many gay women dress in shirt and tie, it was more common in 20's - 50's (they're called butch). Look at Marlene Dietrich who used to sign photos of herself in top hat n tails as "Daddy Marlene" and other famous women who also dressed in this way are Vita Sackville West and Mercedes De Acosta.
I think it very curious that men (even a gay man like Mann) and straight women like Karen Swenson (in her biography of Garbo) like to think butch women are just transvestites or transgender, but not really actually gay.

At that time in history women were very much 2nd class citizens and so to escape many of the restrictions on girls at the time; of course a young girl who wants to be treated equally with her male siblings would try and claim to be a boy. After all most parents (particularly fathers, especially of that generation, say they prefer a boy child to a girl, just ask most expectant parents today, it hasn't changed much.)
So if she pretended to be a boy it doesn't necessarily make her "transgender", this seems to be difficult for most people to understand, maybe you can't unless you are a gay woman?

Surely as a gay man his heard of drag? Women can dress in drag too and not want to actually change their sex or be uncomfortable about their gender. There were many popular male impersonators in British music hall of the 1930's Hetty King and Ella Shields to name only a couple and many in Greenwich Village also. It seems this author is just towing the line to the prevailing culture that think butch women are transgender. It is dangerous to think this way when you look at Iran for example with the forced sex changes of gay people there, you can see this view taken to the extreme.

Of course she would like to play male roles, most butch women would (Garbo also wanted to and the great actress Sarah Bernhardt also played male roles in some of her plays), you could get away with interacting with female co stars without the script actually being overtly gay and also not have to batter your eye lashes at a man, like you would have if you played a woman's role. (Pantomime is a good example of where men play women's roles and women play men's roles.) Another point is male roles were generally more substantial; where as most of the women's roles were just as a love interest for the man.

I hope a gay woman will write a biography of Katharine Hepburn soon and hopefully they'll have more of an understanding of these subjects than this author.

I've given this book four stars as it reveals more about Kate than most other biographies.

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Beautifully written with a few flaws

I thoroughly enjoyed reading "Kate." I went into this biography with very little previous knowledge of Katherine Hepburn. I found it interesting that Mann took the approach of debunking all previous accounts of Hepburn's life and portraying how the legend was built. Mann does a great job of showing Hepburn's ability to recreate her career many times and stay relevant in order to sustain a permanent presence in American culture. While many actresses of her generation settled for unfulfilling roles, Kate somehow did things on her terms with her career and personal life until close to her death.

However, there were parts of the book that became increasingly redundant. For all Mann's talent and obvious research, when it came to proving a point that I felt was his agenda, he used some unreliable sources and pure speculation. I could accept the fact that Katherine Hepburn and everyone around her was gay or bisexual with sufficient evidence. When Mann found research to prove his point he considered it valid. However, when anyone was quoted suggesting otherwise from his point, he completely discounted the source. For such a well versed writer, he could have been more objective. Many times he goes off about things such as gay hollywood or the lack of physicality in Hepburn's relationships so much so that his agenda comes across very clear. In trying to prove that Hepburn is a unique and uncatagorical person, he does just the opposite and puts her in a box. He is unable to think that she could simply have close friendships with women or a physical relationship with anyone. In trying to prove his point on Hepburn's sexuality, he sinks to using what comes across as unreliable sources such as "Scotty, the hustler." He often times speculates about what things in Hepburn's life really meant to her or what her motives were without giving anything concrete to back it up. He assumes that every action Hepburn took has a motive behind it or is not representative of her true self.

Overall, despite Mann's flaws in proving his agenda, the book only makes Katherine Hepburn more facsinating. By the end of the book, it seems that Mann is even amazed by how sucessfully she built her legend. He does a great job with his writing and keeping the reader interested, but because of his specualtion in so many areas I had to take the book with a grain of salt.

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Great read

I often skim movie star bios, but I rarely read them. The stories are often predictable (poor beginnings, meteoric rise, and dramatic fall which sometimes leads to a big comeback) and the prose is often purple. Writers will speculate on little, and that becomes the new story for that particular star.

So, I KATEGORIE|/was" class="textlinks">was surprised when I began to read Mann's book about Hepburn and I found myself reading every word.

His idea that Hepburn was always "Jimmy," a male alter-ego explains a lot about Hepburn in her ninety plus years. I also agree with him that her best and most progressive work was in the 30's when she hadn't "Tracy Lorded" herself yet, having to be broken for her "sins."

He does have the unfortunate habit of using the nonstandard "due to the fact," and he makes a factual mistake when he writes that Hepburn's co-star in "Stage Door," Andrea Leeds, won the Acadamy Award. She was nominated, but no win.

But otherwise, I recommend this book highly.

And go watch "Bringing Up Baby," perhaps the greatest comedy in Hollywood history.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

The first major Katharine Hepburn biography independent of her control reveals the smart, complicated, and sophisticated woman behind the image
Onscreen she played society girls, Spencer Tracy?s sidekick, lionesses in winter. But the best character Katharine Hepburn ever created KATEGORIE|/was" class="textlinks">was Katharine Hepburn: a Connecticut Yankee, outspoken and elegant, she wore pants whatever the occasion and bristled at Hollywood glitter. So captivating was her image that she never seemed less than authentic. But how well did we know her, really? Was there a woman behind the image who was more human, more driven, and ultimately more triumphant because of her vulnerability?
William J. Mann?a cultural historian and journalist, a sympathetic admirer but no mere fan?has fashioned an intimate, often revisionist, and truly unique close-up that challenges much of what we think we know about the Great Kate. Previous biographies?mostly products of friends and fans?have recycled the stories she hid behind, taking Hollywood myths at face value. Mann goes deeper, delivering new details from friends and family who have not been previously interviewed and drawing on materials only available since Hepburn?s death.
With affection, intelligence, and a voluminous knowledge of Hollywood history, Mann shows us how a woman originally considered too special and controversial for fame learned the fine arts of movie stardom and transformed herself into an icon as durable and all-American as the Statue of Liberty.

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