Katharine Hepburn interview with Barbara Walters 1991

out there are the towers of midtown manhattan but in here in the garden of her townhouse is the quiet and very special world of catherine hepburn she's lived here since 1933. hepburn now admits she's 84 and doing fine thank you she still has her tremor always will she says since she inherited the shakes from grandfather hepburn but it's not as something the devastating parkinson's disease on this visit for the first time she let us tour all three floors of her home hepburn loves fireplaces the house has five of them and on the mantels and the walls her favorite pieces some done by friends sometimes her own work like this piece of sculpture and in the ground floor kitchen a katherine hepburn self-portrait this she calls her closet though there are no hangers everything is laid out on the furniture wasn't the fashion designers who gave her a lifetime achievement award be amazed there's not a high heel in sight and she doesn't own a skirt this painting also by hepburn is of her room in the house she shared with spencer tracy there are many reminders of her life with tracy like this picture next to her bed and also in her rather spartan bedroom on the dressing table photographs of the other most important people in her life her mother and father we talked with catherine hepburn in the flower filled back power she sat in her favorite chair and we began our interview with the career that has made her a legend yes do you think that acting is a great art no what is it i thought painting and i don't think acting is i think some people's acting might be said to be but not my acting then why did you want to become an actress i have no idea why i became an actor i wasn't very bright so no not bright not bright not too intelligent and i thought i was a good golf of the sports don't last i would love to be the tennis champion but i wasn't that good so what was i going to do persuade someone to marry me well you did that too i did that early an ice man who gave me everything i wanted and started me out in this profession she married ludlow ogden smith luddy when she was 21 but their marriage was not to last he stayed behind when she left for hollywood in 1932 to begin her amazing film career i know that i'm a waiter i'm the greatest young actress in the world in just her third film morning glory she'd win her first oscar for the role of evil lovelace the aspiring young actress now keep quiet i'll let you with you after you had much success in early films you came to new york to work in a play called the lake yes your disaster how do you deal with that kind of failure well that's that's why i wrote the book because uh i think that was a very very difficult thing for me to deal with and i thought what went wrong how could i uh an actor by then two or three years uh have walked through a performance which i did absolutely walk through it thinking god i wish i weren't here or i wish i were dead oh i hope this ends with no emotion of any kind so what did you learn about defeat what did you get from that well from the feet i learned you have to know a little bit what you're doing and you are the only person who is to blame in your life really you can't move on saying well i don't want to go this way i'm going this way because you're pushing me don't do that there's one person to blame and that is you it's it's a rather um ironic i guess that the most famous lines when people do imitations of you and i think of it looking at those lilies behind you are there lines from the lilies are in bloom again from the lake and that's the line that's lived onto that yes the cattle lives are in bloom again such a strange flower i placed them on my i carried them on my wedding day and now i placed them here in memory of someone who was gone why do you i don't even know who was good but you don't remember you cry very often in films do you ever cry in real life cry cry no don't cry only in films i don't cry in films you do yeah so they'll know i'm sad i see are you ever in doubt uh practically always oh really yes you're so definite yes i am that you once will be but inside you really are not sure it's just outside you have influenced my life i have believed everything you've said and now you tell me you're not really sure at this late day i don't think so i don't think so but you say it definitely it's all i've got i have to say it the soup is good eat it [Laughter] you have to be definite now we get to something that you and i have been discussing for years and that is you have often said that women who want a real career should not get married well i'm one track so i just say i can't i can't i think if you think about yourself all the time and if you're an actor your inclination is to think about yourself then what about the husband and children you're not thinking about them so i'm very extreme in my point of view what do you think will happen to jane fonda and ted turner two very strong successful famous you're talking to someone who doesn't know who ted turner is so this is embarrassing i mean i know he's ahead of something but i don't know what and if she likes him i think that's fine this is the first time that you have discussed your romantic relationships in your book yes and one of the most interesting and one you have not talked about is howard hughes oh new york millionaire movie producer and record-breaking aviator howard hughes hepburn writes millionaire howard hughes was the top of the available men and she the top of the available women not surprising then that he'd finagle an introduction they first met in 1936 when she was on location with cary grant a friend of hughes we were making a movie and an airplane he howard flew in landed in the adjoining lot and came over to lunch it's a great entrance i thought a little too great so i was mean i never looked at him at all i just looked this way and and paid attention to everyone else and was furious with gary you went with howard hughes for quite a few years three years two or three something like that four why didn't you marry him didn't want to loved him liked him yeah liked it very much he was nice and a very interesting man but again i didn't want to get married and she never did although there were other men like leland hayward a famous agent and producer and then she met spencer tracy although he was already married he would be the love of her life come in stan come in the film woman of the year hepburn was 33. tracy was 40. he hit me first hello she once told me he was baked potatoes she was more crep suzette's but it was magic both on screen and off i was wondering about this afternoon i'm sorry tomorrow afternoon what's on your mind i'd like to take you to a baseball game okay they would be together for 27 years in your book you say to your readers now be patient eventually i will talk about spencer tracy yes i have been patient yes when you finally discuss spencer tracy you say few people know what they mean when they say i love you what did those words mean to you well the the word what does the word love mean it means total interest i think if that the reason very few people really fall in love with anyone is that they're not willing to pay the price what's the price the price is that you adjust you were just yourself to them now if you're loved back that's great then there's no problem and if you're not loved back then it can be a problem do you feel you were loved back oh barbara you're very smart i knew you could ask me that i i think he hung around a while see you you say it's an amazing relationship because you say that in all the years you were together 27 years yeah that you never knew how spencer tracy felt about you well i never really did didn't you ever say it didn't he ever say i love you i don't remember wouldn't you remember that i think i would if i would believe it but maybe i was reluctant to believe it why well i can't imagine being in love with me thought that was a witty remark was this the only man you were really in love with i would say so here you are and were one of the most independent women and yet you write that if spencer tracy disliked something about you some quality some aspect of your appearance you would change yes what happened to the independents you who represent independence if you didn't like it you change yeah he said i don't like this outfit please put on his skirt in high heels yes i would have but he wasn't that silly what were the qualities that he didn't like that he wanted you to change do you remember oh the obvious ones you know that i'm rather loud i speak up instead of down and some of the things that i like to do he didn't like to do but she never asked him to change he had been married since 1928. he was a catholic he and his wife louise had two children a daughter susie and a son johnny johnny was born deaf and mrs tracy devoted most of her time and energy to him spencer chaser was married and he never divorced his wife that's right did you ever ever want him to so that you could have lived openly together no no when we lived up we laid out together but you have an uncompromising sense of right and wrong a line that you don't cross yes did it ever bother you that you were having an affair with a married man with two small children no no that was the line you could cross no i i didn't think that way but i certainly had no intention of breaking up his relationship with his wife the hollywood press and at that time the glass of columnist they let you alone they let us alone because i think they thought that we made a great deal of effort not to sort of parade ourselves around do you think the physical part of a relationship is very important well i would have to say yes i think so don't you or do you not i think it's important my interview no my question you know what i mean it's it's so how can one answer that question why do you like someone i can't answer that question is it that you like to live with them cohabit with them i don't know or is it that you just admire them i don't know where spencer i cannot tell you i cannot tell you why i felt the way i felt about spencer old yes burned out certainly but i can tell you the memories are still there clear intact indestructible and they'll be there if i lived to be 110. guess who's coming to dinner would be their ninth and last film together spencer tracy had not been well for some time and hepburn writes poignantly in her book of a night just two weeks after their work in the movie was completed i slept in one end thousand spencer slept at the other end of the house and he apparently got up to go and make himself a cup of tea and the kettle was always boiling on the stove i heard him get up i'm a very light sleeper and uh i heard him go into the kitchen so i put on my slippers and robe and went out to the kitchen and as i was standing before the kitchen door i heard a clunk in the other room and spencer was dead he'd fallen down near the stove and was just dead and i called mrs tracy and the kids and they came and uh they made the arrangements that night was the first time that you met mrs tracy yes did mrs tracy know of your relationship i'm sure she must have sort of gathered about my relationship but she refused to accept it i could understand that and she had done what i would have done in the same situation i would have taken care of johnny and i would have lost spencer so you can't uh i don't think she you know what do you do you can't be definite about everything in life you did not go to spencer tracy's funeral no i was not his wife has there ever been a man since spencer tracy who really interested you no no but i mean that i was old so it didn't matter it wasn't that old you were in your what 50s that's yeah but it's not possible if i'd been interested in tying myself up for someone but i felt that i had perfection so why bother you know the other pictures of him and mementos of him you know all over the house yet you wrote a letter about him which you read on public television in which you said i never knew you i never knew i don't think i ever did but then i don't think you ever know anybody since we're never going to know you totally could you finish this sentence for me catherine hepburn is adorable what do you want me to say or is it jackass which do you prefer the last one it's safer i'm crazy about you catherine hepburn jackass or adorable william very sweet you're very sweet you always call me miss hepburn and i call you barbara so why don't you shift and call me kate i'd like that i like that too thank you kate yeah that's pretty nice i i think barbara people might still wonder why after all the years of silence has she come forward now about spencer tracy she would never really talk about him in a personal way although she talked about his acting all the time as long as mrs tracy was alive there is that line in her mind mrs tracy has died and catherine hepburn is now friendly with the tracy's daughter and i think finally she felt she wasn't hurting anyone i find that so fascinating that she had this affair at a time when when someone like ingrid bergman was banished but everybody accepted it from hepburn because she has such a sense and there was enormous discretion too there was no flaunting of it that's right i've done so many interviews and every once in a while i think aren't i lucky to know someone and i don't want to gush but aren't i lucky dude i think you are and you're lucky we're lucky to have you bring her to us thank you barbara

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Length: 18min 1sec (1081 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 30 2020