Katharine Hepburn: A Tribute

I'll bet I wasn't the only listener who ordered this book believing it to be the recent best-seller-list biography published shortly after her death. There were interesting tidbits, but the fawning descriptions of "this remarkable actress," etc. in almost every paragraph and the Hollywood-hype reading by the narrator had me feeling that I was listening to a publicity blurb from the forties. It also had the effect of presenting Ms. Hepburn as an icon, not a human being, which got pretty dull after a while. I hope Audible offers the other biography, the name of which, of course, escapes me right now.

The one excelent gift the author gives us is interviews of the actual players in Katharine Hepburn's life. Family members and directors and actors lend their voices and personal accounts of time with Hepburn. By that fact alone...this book works better as an audio than a tradional page turned volume. I didn't learn anything new about Ms. Hepburn's life, here. All of the accounts of Kate were very worshipful to the point of nauseum. Wasn't amazing...just okay.

Touching tribute to the great actress features many interesting interviews with those that knew her. These comments are interwoven with dialogues where Miss Hepburn tells of her own memories and friendships. Most of the work deals with her later years in New York and finally Fenwick, CT.