Ginger Rogers, Katharine Hepburn, and the 1941 Oscars

the classic light on Ginger Rogers is that she did everything Fred Astaire did but backwards and in heels but to be honest I think that cells are short yes she was a singer and a dancer with a capital D but she was also an accomplished dramatic actress in 1941 Ginger Rogers won the Best Actress Oscar for Kitty Foyle and a performance that reinvented the popular opinion about what she could achieve the award came as a bit of a shock I don't know how it happened but I have it in my hand but I have and that's something she pretty much mentioned for the rest of her life but she isn't just being humble she had a reason to genuinely believe she might not win do you know what who my competition was well I'd rather you say it was Betty Davis in the letter Katharine Hepburn in Philadelphia Story Martha Scott in our town and Joan Fontaine in Rebecca and I was the fifth person to be voted for so I thought well I just don't have a chance in this in this field at all and surprised as I was I was I was shoved that group includes some of the best remembered performances of not only the 1940s but if the entire classic era it's easy to understand how ginger could reasonably assume she wouldn't win each of these women fought for her place in the Hollywood pantheon but two nominees in 1941 stand out in my mind as representations of what those battles can look like Ginger Rogers and Katharine Hepburn's careers have key similarities they both started their careers on stage both called RKO home in the 1930s both dated Howard Hughes and obviously both were nominated for best actress in 1941 but their differences set them on wildly contrasting paths to those markers where one wrote a rollercoaster to the top the other made a steady climb so today will tell the story of the 1941 Oscars by mirroring their journeys giving ginger her due of course but also exploring a loss that was probably more pivotal to Catherine's career than any of her actual wins how did failure give her strength and what made Ginger Rogers stand out in a field of legendary women over the course of her first two years in Hollywood Ginger Rogers made over a dozen films most of them aren't hugely memorable notable exceptions being the gold diggers of 1933 and 42nd Street both of which really put her on the map but this era is really important because it established gingers persona which stuck with her all the way through Kitty Foyle in the early 1930s many women spent their careers playing mannered aristocratic women and escapist romantic fantasies not ginger she was an ally to the real girl sassy and streetwise often making her way in unglamorous jobs in the time of the transatlantic accent she seldom took on the affected speech of high society and if she did it was usually part of a joke or a trick like in this scene from 42nd Street where she fakes her wealth to get noticed she represented the humour and grit of working life take for example flying down to Rio where she plays the supporting comedic working contrasts to Dolores Del Rio's aunjanue that was ginger space but in flying down to Rio RKO added an extra element that changed her career forever flying down to Rio was Ginger's first film with Fred Astaire from the moment they struck the floor and their first number together audiences were entranced and RKO knew they had struck gold this started an entirely new phase for Fred and Ginger's careers and catapulted them to major stardom over the course of the next five years they appeared in nine films together and more often than not those films appeared in the top 10 box-office rankings for the year if you haven't seen a friend and Ginger movie before it typically goes something like this Fred sees ginger and falls in love with her he tries to impress her but she makes some sassy quip and rejects him he keeps trying and eventually they end up dancing together somehow and before you know it she's in love with him too at face value that's a pretty simple formula but it doesn't take much to understand why people loved them together and why their work has stood the test of time many of their dances are currently available on YouTube and I highly encourage you to check them out if you haven't seen any because it's hard to describe just how enjoyable they are I recommend this one from swing time typically achieved in a single take each dance reveals raw athleticism and grace through intricate choreography as the music begins they transform as Robin wood wrote in film comment from Fred and Ginger ordinary guy and ordinary gal to Astaire and Rogers God and Goddess their dances are not gratuitous or overindulgent they are a poetic push and pull between equals meant to convey some pivotal moment in their relationship as Alistair Macaulay wrote in the New York Times their dances expressed many of Love's moods courtship and seduction repartee and responsiveness teasing and challenged with the surprise of newfound harmony the happy recapture of bygone romance and the tragedy of parting these films elevated gingers persona for the wisecracking comedienne to the wisecracking comedian who could dance like an angel right to the top of the box office RKO was thrilled ginger was extraordinarily popular and bringing a ton of money in for them Katharine Hepburn and not so much unlike ginger Katharine Hepburn basically became an overnight success in Hollywood RKO recruited her from the stage specifically to play a major supporting role in bill of divorcement alongside celebrated veterans John Barrymore and Billy Burke despite the fact that it was her first film and that she was acting next to experienced professionals critics agree that she essentially stole the movie her career shot off like a rocket and in 1934 the same year RKO began turning out vehicles for ginger and Fred she won an Academy Award for just her third film morning glory but that peak was followed by a deep valley RKO didn't really know how to use Kathryn they repeatedly stuck a woman who exudes extraordinarily modern energy and period pieces with men she had absolutely no chemistry with do you think so that some handsome gentleman might be partial to me a bowl with the benefit of hindsight we know what a good Katharine Hepburn role looks like we also know it does not look like a mountain woman or a Victorian mother or anyone who would pine for Charles boy a with the exception of Alice Adams which nearly won her a second Academy Award almost everything she starred in flopped many lost the studio money and to make matters worse Catherine's well-known a virgin to the obligations of celebrity culture began to erode her goodwill with just about everyone she didn't want to do interviews or sign autographs she didn't want to dress like a movie star she fought with executives so in the words of the press back then she seemed spoiled rude queer antisocial and snobbish and the fact that RKO kept putting her in roles where she played rich society or royal women did not help dispel the idea that she was an entitled brat from a rich family honestly I have never seen anyone as thoroughly dragged as some of those magazines routinely did Katharine Hepburn as a result her box office ranking plummeted from the top 10 in 1933 to 23rd in 1935 she needed a hit addley RKO hoped Catherine could revive her career by piggybacking off of one of their more bankable stars so in 1937 they arranged for her to star in Stage Door alongside ginger who had just finished her seventh astaire film and ranked a healthy third in place of box-office popularity Catherine had sunk to 52nd the press hyped up the pairing and published articles hypothesizing that the two when inevitably Feud onset both were considered temperamental in their own ways which you should really just read as code for a woman who won't accept [ __ ] from her studio sources vary on how turbulent their relationship actually was but um yeah they were really different people Stage Door is an ensemble film about a boarding house for aspiring young actresses Catherines character who is surging with unearned confidence and bankrolled by her wealthy family arrives at the house and shortly thereafter lands a starring role she rooms with gingers character Reverend dancer who is still working her ass off to make it big sound familiar the film coops the assumptions audiences had about Katherine and ginger in real life to build conflicts between the characters in the movie it even famously borrowed a line from a real play Katherine had flopped in on Broadway State Shore is a great movie and super fun to view with an understanding of where these two women were in their careers plus it boasts one of the best supporting casts I can think of I mean when you actually think about it it's kind of crazy that Katherine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers are picking up Lucille Ball another one by the way who are kyoka misjudged anyway unfortunate for Katherine staged or did not do that well and because ginger was so beloved Katherine was blamed for it the same happened with her next film bringing a baby now people consider bringing a baby one of the best screwball comedies ever and Katherine is well suited to that role but in 1938 it read like a transparent effort to rebrand Katherine and the vein of actresses like Irene Dunne and Carole Lombard who were absolutely killing it in that genre so even though critics really liked it a nice departure from her dreary monotony of metallic reading audiences rolled their eyes wrote it off and it flopped that same year an infamous ad named Katherine and various other actors aux office poison independent theater owners suggested that those stars just weren't making enough money in the box office to justify their continued employment many studios used to add as an excuse to alter contracts of actors they low-key agreed were not pulling their weight and Katherine whose salary was dropping rapidly and who realized her most recent offers were verging on a movie territory use it as an excuse to make a change herself so she bought out her own contract at RKO for $75,000 and left the lot meanwhile the astaire-rogers partnership was winding down and ginger needed to find her niche outside of that on-screen relationship she was keenly aware that people only saw her as a dancer into comedic new and she was actively searching for opportunities to be seen as literally anything else she needed diversity for a couple of reasons one she didn't want her career to stagnate to dancing his really hard work like your white shoes our pink now because you bled through them hard work and three you don't get the same kind of recognition for dancing as you do for heavier dramatic roles in the late 1930s the Academy was still in its infancy but it already favored drama to comedy when it came to acting awards so if she wanted to be more of a prestige actress than a popular actress she needed a big melodramatic role later when asked why it took so long for her to receive an Oscar nomination she attributed it to her typecasting saying quote I haven't been build up as a dramatic actress in 1940 she finally found opportunities first came primrose path a significantly darker film for her than usual in which she played the daughter of a prostitute and an alcoholic who must hide the truth about her past from the man she loves then came Kitty Foyle Kitty Foyle uses flashbacks to explore the relationship between a white collar woman and the very rich man she loves again we see ginger in contrast to her aristocratic Society but this time with an entirely different tone although she knows she will never love anyone the way she loves Wynne played by Denis Morgan she refuses to change herself to fit into his family's rigid definition of womanhood and marriage she chooses dignity and security over money in a lot of ways ginger was absolutely the perfect person for this role because it is the logical yet dramatic extension of the persona she developed in the early 30s class consciousness had subtly permeated her films for years but only now is it brought to the fore to reinforce and praise her ordinariness it was the apotheosis of her persona one revue proclaimed Ginger Rogers acting a so poignant that Kitty is not a girl up there on the screen but she is you and you and you Kitty Foyle also forecasts the future of roles from women in the 1940s darker tied up in anxieties about work and family and although still soaked in glamour were intimately tied to middle-class sensibilities a society moved into the 1940s war crept closer and closer escapism was losing its foothold on American cinema and the gritty realities of everyday life slowly but surely replaced it Kitty Foyle has it necessarily aged well there are some moments that are very much steeped in forties attitudes however the ginger shines in her most complex world by far and conveys a huge range of emotion Kitty Foyle was our Kiyo's top film for 1940 and almost single-handedly brought the studio out of the slum but when the announcement came that she was nominated for an Oscar she didn't think she would win this was her first nomination and as I mentioned at the beginning of this video there were some heavy hitters to contend with in Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca Joan Fontaine plays the new bride a rich man haunted by the memory of his deceased wife the film was a box-office smash and earned the most Oscar nominations that year 11 eventually winning Best Picture it was also Joan's star-making vehicle she had spent years in what you might call B movies before i catching performances in the women and Goga din jones when the following year for another Hitchcock film suspicion was largely seen as consolation for having lost for Rebecca in the letter Betty Davis gives one of her best bad [ __ ] performances as a woman living it on a rubber plantation who commits a murder despite her rabble-rousing at Warner Brothers Eddie was in the middle of probably her most successful string of films entering her best decade and nearing the height of her power in Hollywood she was already a two-time Oscar winner and was being groomed to become president of the Academy in 1941 she even spoke at the ceremony in an official capacity and assumed the presidency later that fall now they did kick her out of the presidency after two months so the Academy liked her but not that much truly Betty is one of the most fascinating people in classic Hollywood and she will get more videos in the future explaining exactly why Martha Scott is kind of the outlier here because she was brand new to Hollywood she originated her role in our town on Broadway and was asked to reprise the role film predicts noted how admirably she transitioned the mediums no shade but what I have been mad if Rosalind Russell and his girl Friday were nominated instead no no I would not obviously the last nominee was Katharine Hepburn after leaving RKO she returned to the East Coast and began collaborating with playwright Philip Barry on a new play he wrote with her in mind luckily for Katherine in the Philadelphia Story and its subsequent national tour were enormous ly successful with the help of mogul and sometime boyfriend Howard Hughes she acquired a portion of the play meaning any future movie adaptation would have to be done with her approval she read the writing on the wall if anything could be her comeback it would be the Philadelphia Story so when MGM came knocking Kathryn guaranteed herself a starring role and got to handpick her co-stars and her director vital factors in ensuring your success on screen ownership gave her power which is an extremely important lesson to remember her skill of course was on full display in the Philadelphia Story but it was only through her business savvy that that opportunity became available no one was clamoring for her to come back the public had been persuaded to root against her and the critics explicitly stated that they hated her with a passion she had to do this herself in the Philadelphia Story Katharine plays Tracy Lord an heiress who is preparing for her wedding when a tabloid reporter and her ex-husband show up and make her question her decision to marry Tracy's Ark is that of a goddess brought down to earth her ex-husband played by Cary Grant complaints that she finds human imperfection unforgivable and that it was impossible to live with someone on a pedestal who rejects vulnerability Tracy gradually realizes that her impenetrable perfectionism is in fact her weakness that arc revealed new aspects of Catherine's acting that caused critics to think about her an entirely different way one paper wrote that she had developed a warmth and sensitivity and an honesty that are indispensable in the closing scenes showing Tracy as a slightly pitiful person shocked into human understanding of Cummings in herself as well as others like many of katherines RKO characters Tracy is affluent and living in an aristocratic bubble unlike Kitty Foyle Tracy is not you but critics were not blind to who she actually was as Mildred Martin wrote in the Philadelphia Inquirer Tracy Lord is Katharine Hepburn and when Katie plays herself that is really something reporters noted that the standoffish uppity miss who made caustic remarks had become very real and thoroughly nice in real life which contributed to a strong comeback narrative the press said that time away from Hollywood taught her a lesson they framed her as a reconstructed rebel Broadway they say had mellowed her they wrote she had grown up she has reformed like a queen like a goddess and you know how are you oh like a human like a human being sometimes a comeback narrative is enough to bring home an Oscar both Joan Crawford and Olivia de Havilland did it just a few years later but it doesn't always work that way despite her positive reviews Hollywood welcomed Kathryn back cautiously she had accumulated too much doubt and frankly too much resentment one movie magazine even reported that there were rumors to the effect that miss Hepburn can never again win an Academy Award no matter how superlative her future film performances may be and that some Academy members even admitted that they voted for Ginger Rogers on personal grounds rather than because they thought her a better actress than Kate still it's remarkably impressive that Katherine engineered her own come back and through sheer willpower re-entered the industry with the upper hand that kind of I can do anything gumption was very much what America wanted and needed to see later in the 1940s especially the women who took on much bigger roles on the homefront while men were at war so her self-assuredness had a much different currency in that decade and beyond and she had a lot more opportunities to use it now at MGM she would find roles that actually fit her and crucially would pair her with Spencer Tracy and of course she now holds the records for the most acting Oscar wins so I guess joke's on those it's instead Ginger Rogers who had gradually accumulated goodwill and respect one the day she surprised critics who didn't think she had it in her or as one critic put it it's hard to believe that she is even remotely related to the inconsequential young thing who scraped by on a narrow margin of adequate nough so many previous films even if most people only know Ginger Rogers in the context of her films with Fred Astaire the truth is that that is just one facet of what she achieved as an actress she made that happen ginger and Kathryn share that determination neither allowed their careers to be dictated by what everyone else thought it was or should be Katherine's story shows that when women have actual positions of power they can forge their own destinies we still see this today think about Reese Witherspoon's second career as a producer ginger story is a lesson in hard work that defying expectations is not an easy or overnight task so that night at the Academy Awards may have come as a surprise but it didn't come without a cause ginger there is a story going around now in the press that Katherine Hepburn dumped a pail of water on your head is that true goodness that's such an old dog that's another sob but it's it wasn't a pail of water no I had on a new mink coat and I came to show it to my friend the director and so she heard me say this is new me this is my new mink coat and she had some water and she went she says if it's new if it's make it won't shrink well so so it didn't shrinks so what

Channel: Be Kind Rewind

Views: 423,547

Keywords: ginger rogers, katharine hepburn, oscars, academy awards, bette davis, martha scott, rebecca, joan fontaine, kitty foyle, the philadelphia story, the letter, our town, stage door, 1941, 1941 oscars, best actress, hollywood history

Id: HkKTllMa2_M

Length: 21min 33sec (1293 seconds)

Published: Thu May 23 2019