The Philadelphia Story: Katharine Hepburn

I was raised in a suburb of Philadelphia, where Katharine Hepburn’s presence around Bryn Mawr has been preserved to a certain extent. Consequently, I always had an idea of who she was without actually knowing anything about her. In a way she was the first “great” Hollywood star that I could recognize and I can remember my mom telling me that she was, “Diane Keaton before Diane Keaton.” Only now do I understand what she meant by that statement. This all lead me to sit down and watch The Philadelphia Story one night in October when I had nothing else planned. It was during my sophomore year of high school, the time I was beginning to explore my love of cinema. Basing my selection on the vague knowledge I had acquired about Katharine Hepburn over the first sixteen years of my life, and with an inflated sense of hometown glory, I watched the film. I am now forever indebted to The Philadelphia Story. It is ultimately what inspired me to pursue a career in the film industry and continues to inspire my work today. But there is a disparity …show more content…
After a period of renown, she became well known by her peers for “her unconventional attitude and strong personality.” These are simply fluff words, just polite ways of calling Hepburn a diva or, put bluntly, a bitch. This led to her being cast in an offscreen role that no star would ever want to play. The role being “box office poison” and it was given to her by the Independent Theatre Owners of America. The Theater Owners was a group that took notice of declining numbers at certain movies’ box offices and linked them to the actors that starred in them. Her reputation had bled into the public’s eye and was affecting her ability to gross money for the studios. And in the film industry, like any industry, where it’s all about making money Katharine was traded for actresses of greater star