Conversation Piece

In the RKO dressing hairdressing department, during the spring of 1939. I eavesdropped, over a half a wall, on a 6 A. M., over-coffee conversation, involving Lucille Ball, Barbra Stanwyck, Ginger Rogers and several unidentifiable voices. Lucille and Ginger were making Stage Door with Kate at the time. Barbara Stanwyck was on The Mad Miss Manton.

There was general studio agreement that Katharine Hepburn was a dazzling actress and a star, but there was some question as to whether she was going to become box office.

The voices said:
“She’s gorgeous. How can she miss?
“Takes more than gorgeous, sugar.”
“Yeah? Like what?”
“Talent.”
“Luck.”
“Hits.”
“That’s it. Hits. Listen to her her.”
“So. She’s had hits.”
“Not lately.”
“What do you call ‘lately’?”
“What about Alice Adams?”
“Two years ago.”
“All right.”
“All right if she’d done nothing since, but she’s had strike-outs in the two years. Sylvia Scarlett.”
“Help!”
“Break of Hearts.”
“I liked it.”
“But Kokomo didn’t.”
“Mary of Scotland. Wasn’t that a hit?”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No!”
“No.”
“A Woman Rebels.”
“She should’ve, before she said yes to that turkey.”
“Quality Street?”
“They say she picked that one herself. Well, whoever. The people didn’t want it.”
“She’s gonna score in this one, though. Boy, is she ever great.”
“Yeah, but we’re talking about star. The ones people come to see, no matter what. Gable, Tracy, Harlow, Bette. Like that.”
“Maybe Hepburn’s too special.”
“What do you mean?”
“Too, like – well, like high-toned. Not like us.”
“I’m high-toned you pisspot!”
The unmistakable voice cut-through voice of Lucille Ball took over.”

“Listen biddies, don’t you worry your pretty little heads – and I do mean little – about Miss Katie. She’ll make it just fine. She knows the combination to the safe. To everybody’s safe. Have you ever noticed something? How every time she gets into a new scene, no matter where, or on the stage, and she’s wearing a new outfit, every son-of-a-bitch on this lot, from every department, finds his way over there – or her way – to stand around and gawk? Why is that? Don’t ask me, but they sure all want to look at her, and see what she doe. I do it myself. And the grips from the other sets and cutters and messengers and readers. The all find their way and stand around taking her in like out-of-town visitors. I notice they don’t do it for any of the rest of us. Only for her. So why is that? Don’t ask me. But I claim anybody who can get a routine like that going for them, without trying even, has to become a big star, and, what’s more, stay a big star. She’s news, that’s all. Hot news. All the time.”

The instinctively sagacious Lucille, who wound up owing that very studio, had recognized (sic) it. Call it news, hot news, call it “it,” as Eleanor Glyn did for Clara Bow, or call it, as we do these days, charisma. Katharine Hepburn had it and has it.

Kanin, Garson. Tracy and Hepburn: An Intimate Memoir. New York: Viking Press Inc, 1971