Hedda Hooper's Hollywood, 1939

Exactly 70 years ago, 70 years, famed gossip columnist for the Los Angeles Times, Hedda Hopper ,was writing about actress Katharine Hepburn.

This was 1939 kids.

During this time Hepburn had a romance going on with mega-millionaire Howard Hughes.

Hepburn was having a disasterous time in Hollywood and he was going to put his girl back on the map that was helped along with a little play called “The Philadelphia Story.”

Hepburn fans of course know how that all worked out…splendidly actually, it would go on to be a movie in which she would star with Jimmy Stewart and Cary Grant.

Just thought you might like to see this little snippet, read under “Good News.”

See you at “The Kate.”
Ann Nyberg, Trustee, KHCAC

Ernesta Bachrach Hepburn Photo

I’ve read every New York newspaper backward and forward for the past 15 years. I don’t smoke. I only drink champagne when I’m lucky enough to get it. My hair is naturally natural. –Katharine Hepburn, “Desk Set” (1957)

Want to know about what’s abuzz at the Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center? Read for yourself in an article written by Jean Cherni in Sunday’s New Haven Register.

Jean writes:
“Is there any reader unfamiliar with the name, Katharine Hepburn? An icon, even by Hollywood’s flamboyant standards, Miss Hepburn earned twelve Oscar nominations, a record four Oscars, and the Screen Actors Guild Lifetime Achievement Award.

Katharine Hepburn brought, and continues to bring, so much pleasure as well as insight into the human character, it is altogether fitting that Connecticut, where she was born (Hartford, 1907), and the town of Old Saybrook in which she lived, now creates a theater and cultural arts center in her memory.”As accomplished on the stage as she was on the screen, Kate starred in theatrical productions as diverse as, “The Philadelphia Story” (later made into a movie, as well), “The Madwoman of Chaillot,” and “Coco,” based on the life of Coco Chanel.

Movies featuring the perfectly pitched pairing of Hepburn with Spencer Tracy like “Adams Rib” and “The Desk Set” are still favorites on late-night movie channels. And I still get teary-eyed anytime I re-watch her poignant performances in “Summertime” and “The Rainmaker.”

See you at “The Kate.”
Ann Nyberg, Trustee, KHCAC

In May of 2007 the mansion which was the inspiration for the play and subsequent movie “Philadelphia Story,” which starred Katharine Hepburn, was put on the market.

Real estate agents estimated its value to be about $100,000,000.00.

The Ardrossan Mansion, on 360 acres, was the “main line” of Main Line Philadelphia. The grande palace was surrounded by a working farm.

This is a 50-room Georgian mansion. It was named after the Montgomery ancestral home in Ayrshire, Scotland. Hope Montgomery Scott was the inspiration for Hepburn’s “Tracy Lord.”

To read more about the “real” Philadelphia story on which the play and movie were based, go to www.reelclassics.com

To have a look inside the mansion during its glory days go here to a pictorial in “Style Century Magazine.”  When you open the link see “shortcuts” at the top, click on that and go to table of contents, click on that,  and you will see “Ardrossan.” Click on that and it will open up the article.

See you at “The Kate.”
Ann Nyberg, Trustee, KHCAC