“I say, you’re a very attractive woman!”—Ralph Richardson, star of Long Day’s Journey Into Night, after dancing with co-star Katharine Hepburn at the film’s wrap party, quoted in A. Scott Berg, Kate Remembered (2003)
Richardson made his comment in 1962, but you can get an idea what he was talking about 20 years before, in this iconic image from Woman of the Year—the first film Katharine Hepburn (whose centennial is today) made with her most frequent co-star (and offscreen lover), Spencer Tracy. The latter film’s director, George Stevens, was a former beau, and you get a sense, in this truly masterful still, of what he—and Ralph, and Spencer—saw in her.
This is the first shot Tracy’s everyman sportswriter has of globetrotting columnist Tess Harding, and he’s impressed. There she is, drawn up to her full height, almost feline in her chic attire, but also almost ferocious with that imperious gaze, as if to say, “Can you handle me? Are you sure?” And the angle of her arms demonstrates, despite the film’s final bow in the direction of male chauvinist contemporary mores, that any relationship between the two would be on her terms.
This shot is a heady mix of intelligence and glamour. What it doesn’t convey is playfulness—a side of the actress that came out best in her prior work with Cary Grant as well as other scenes in her nine films with Tracy.
Tess Harding was reportedly based on columnist Dorothy Thompson, but with her chic allure, Hepburn transformed what was on the written page into the archetype of a new professional woman that would not appear full force in America’s workplaces until three decades later. Even so, there was nobody like Kate the Great before; there has been nobody like her since.
Richardson made his comment in 1962, but you can get an idea what he was talking about 20 years before, in this iconic image from Woman of the Year—the first film Katharine Hepburn (whose centennial is today) made with her most frequent co-star (and offscreen lover), Spencer Tracy. The latter film’s director, George Stevens, was a former beau, and you get a sense, in this truly masterful still, of what he—and Ralph, and Spencer—saw in her.
This is the first shot Tracy’s everyman sportswriter has of globetrotting columnist Tess Harding, and he’s impressed. There she is, drawn up to her full height, almost feline in her chic attire, but also almost ferocious with that imperious gaze, as if to say, “Can you handle me? Are you sure?” And the angle of her arms demonstrates, despite the film’s final bow in the direction of male chauvinist contemporary mores, that any relationship between the two would be on her terms.
This shot is a heady mix of intelligence and glamour. What it doesn’t convey is playfulness—a side of the actress that came out best in her prior work with Cary Grant as well as other scenes in her nine films with Tracy.
Tess Harding was reportedly based on columnist Dorothy Thompson, but with her chic allure, Hepburn transformed what was on the written page into the archetype of a new professional woman that would not appear full force in America’s workplaces until three decades later. Even so, there was nobody like Kate the Great before; there has been nobody like her since.
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