aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Sunday, May 13, 2007

Hepburn’s pragmatism

My friend Sam sends along an OpEd by William Mann, the author of Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn, on the occasion of the actress’s 100th birthday:

Hepburn, who brought a fair share of East Coast entitlement to the film colony, had seemed at first to believe herself immune to the rules that governed other stars. She lived openly with a woman widely assumed to have been her lover, wore men’s trousers and aired unfashionably left-wing opinions that scandalized the fan magazines. One critic sniffed that Hepburn had been “stirring up trouble” ever since she’d arrived in Hollywood. Lessons like the “Sylvia Scarlett” debacle finally convinced her to start following the Hollywood playbook. And so began her metamorphosis from tomboy to glamour girl, from subversive to perpetual honoree.

Through it all, flashes of the original rebel still flared: In May 1947, an “angel in a red dress” (as one audience member described her) made a surprise appearance at Gilmore Stadium in Los Angeles to deliver a fiery speech in support of former vice president (and liberal hero) Henry Wallace. Hepburn lambasted the House Committee on Un-American Activities. “The artist, since the beginning of time, has always expressed the aspirations and dreams of his people,” she said. “Silence the artist and you have silenced the most articulate voice the people have.” The appearance led critics to brand her a “Red appeaser.”

Still, she was shrewd enough to gauge what the traffic would allow: Eventually she would claim that the red dress ("flaming" in some accounts) was really “pink,” and certainly not worn to make a statement. Ultimately she offset all the negative publicity by making “The African Queen.” As the Eleanor Roosevelt-inspired preacher’s daughter, she extolled God and country, chasing from collective memory the fact that she’d barely escaped a summons from the House committee and her career had almost imploded.

I see a similar sort of pragmatism in people here in the South who might otherwise, in other places, feel much freer to be who they are. The optimistic me believes the pendulum is swinging and they will be much freer one day soon.