Kate Remembered
by A. Scott Berg
List Price:
Our Price: $0.01
You Save: $14.99 (100%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: A. Scott BergEdition: Roughcut
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2004-09-07
ISBN: 0425199096
Number of pages: 384
Publisher: Berkley Trade
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780425199091
- Condition: USED - Very Good
- Notes: 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of Kate Remembered
Book Review: "Cold Sober, I Find Myself Absolutely Fascinating"...Agreed
Summary: 5 Stars
Before this book, published just days after her death last year at 96, I felt there wasn't much more I needed to know about screen legend Katharine Hepburn. I had read Barbara Leaming's comprehensive family tree biography and much earlier, the late Garson Kanin's remembrance, "Tracy and Hepburn". Like so many others, I was taken by her headstrong heiresses, liberated career women, lovestruck spinsters, devouring mothers and domineering queens. Her angular cheekbones, her often haughty behavior, her whinnying laugh, her hands-on-hips posturing - all ingrained in my movie viewing memories. I recalled her first TV interview with Dick Cavett in 1973 when she asserted quite accurately with characteristic candor, "Cold sober, I find myself absolutely fascinating". No argument here. Author A. Scott Berg, who became Hepburn's confidante in her last twenty years, has painted a portrait of an irascible woman whose defiant, New England character had not changed much in her nearly hundred years of living. She made no apologies for the life she led and the values she espoused, nor did she need to as lovably eccentric as she was. Hepburn was ahead of her time in her views on female empowerment but amazingly old-fashioned when it came to the dynamics between men and women, as epitomized by her loving, sometimes abusive relationship with the alcoholic and tormented Spencer Tracy, an affair she recalls in the book with a percolating mix of nostalgia and unfiltered honesty.
Much more than a standard biography, Berg's eminently readable book does a wonderful job of showing off her sarcasm and biting wit. Hepburn's razor sharp sense of humor informs her memories of getting sick while filming "The African Queen", being pursued by germ-conscious Howard Hughes, and in one hysterical account, rebuffing Michael Jackson's obtuse request for publicity shots. Her views on the current crop of actors are similarly merciless in ribaldries - Meryl Streep (apparently her least favorite actress with her methodical approach described by Hepburn as "Click, Click, Click"), Glenn Close ("She's got these big, flat, ugly feet" said Hepburn after seeing her onstage), Melanie Griffith ("lethargic"), Arnold Schwarzenegger ("I don't understand him" as Hepburn was referring not to his audience appeal but to his English). I found her interest in TV journalist Cynthia McFadden quite interesting with Hepburn obviously envisioning her as the granddaughter she never had and someone she entrusted to be the executor of her will. The last pages chronicling an enfeebled Hepburn's last months are inevitably sad but resonant of a life fully lived, for one could never feel sorry for Hepburn. She would have never tolerated that. Berg is quite the biographer having covered the lives of Lindbergh and Sam Goldwyn among others, but this is a much more intimate account like Graham Greene's "Travels with My Aunt". A charming book of a most unusual friendship captured by Berg with great heart and just enough sentiment to make you want to rent "Summertime", "Holiday", "The Lion in Winter", "Bringing Up Baby", and on and on and on...
Entertainers Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Entertainers Books
El Sid: Saint Viciousby David Dalton
Griffin; Published: 1998-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.79
Price in other shops:
Moonwalkby Michael Jackson
Crown Archetype; Published: 2009-10-13; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $12.44
Price in other shops:
High Society: The Life of Grace Kellyby Donald Spoto
Three Rivers Press; Published: 2010-10-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.07
Price in other shops:
Stand & Deliver: The Autobiographyby Adam Ant
Pan Macmillan; Published: 2007-04-30; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $105.86
San Antonio Rose: THE LIFE AND MUSIC OF BOB WILLS (Music in American Life)by Charles Townsend
University of Illinois Press; Published: 1986-10-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $33.50
Price in other shops:
Orson Welles: Volume 1: The Road to Xanaduby Simon Callow
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 1997-02-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.22
Price in other shops:
The Basketball Diariesby Jim Carroll
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 1987-07-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.52
Price in other shops:
Hollywood Animalby Joe Eszterhas
Hutchinson; Published: 2004; Paperback; Book
Love, Janisby Laura Joplin
It Books; Published: 2005-08-16; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.50
Price in other shops:
A Paper Life CDby Tatum O'Neal
HarperAudio; Published: 2004-10-12; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $17.77
Price in other shops:
Similar books summaries and other product reviews
Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburnby William J. Mann
Picador; Published: 2007-10-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.18
Price in other shops:
Me : Stories of My Lifeby Katharine Hepburn
Ballantine Books; Published: 1996-09-29; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.50
Price in other shops: