Episode 52 of 52: In which we say a fond farewell to Kate.
How, from where we started, did we ever reach this Christmas?
After 52 weeks, 62 years, and over 90 hours of movie-watching, we have arrived at the end of Katharine Hepburn’s career, and likewise the end of A Year With Kate. Never when I started this series did I believe that it would grow as it has. My intention when we began was simply to honor an actress I loved. From that humble beginning, A Year With Kate evolved into a series on celebrity and stardom, a box office tracker, a promoter of hair-brained hair theories and balloon puns, a Hollywood history blog, and above all a forum for everyone from superfans to newcomers to celebrate and debate classic movies.
There is so much to say (including many thank yous), so this last goodbye is being split into two. Next week we’ll have time for us. Today, appropriately enough on Christmas Eve, we will toast Katharine Hepburn with her final film, One Christmas.
Cocktails, conclusions, and a Christmas wish after the jump.
An elegant elderly woman sits at the center of a Christmas party. Well-dressed partygoers flit around her, occasionally summoning the courage to speak to the intimidating octogenarian. It’s a pretty enough ending, but somehow unimpressive for Kate the Great. It’s just so entirely Christmas Special Ordinary. There is, however, no doubt as to the identity the woman around whom the party (and the film) turns. Despite her age, and the wobble in her head and the warble in her voice, the moment Katharine Hepburn speaks, the room stops. She may be quieter, she may be slower, but Katharine Hepburn remains, as ever, completely unique.
In so many ways, I wish One Christmas was not the last Katharine Hepburn film. I want to be clear: neither Kate nor the film is bad, just aimless. It’s an actively average TV movie based on a Truman Capote short story about a boy (T.J. Lowther) who spends Christmas with his con artist father (Henry Winkler) in New Orleans. One Christmas is too ordinary to have such an extraordinary designation as The Final Katharine Hepburn Film. She should be having a hero’s send off, not teaching small children the meaning of Christmas.
But Katharine Hepburn is not celebrated because of one film in 1994. Katharine Hepburn, like all great legends, is an amalgamation of many disparate parts. In her time, Katharine Hepburn was a starlett, a musical comedy star, box office poison, and a commercial smash. She fought leopards, she fought studio pushback, she fought waffle irons, she fought the Blacklist. She won awards and jeers. She broke records and set trends, despite being almost aggressively anti-fashion. She was an athlete, an old maid, a lawyer, an aviatrix, a queen, a peasant, and once she even played a hick. She was never, ever boring (even if her movies sometimes were). She set new records for awards and opened doors for new actresses. There will never be another Katharine Hepburn. Sixty two years in the spotlight almost don’t seem like enough.
I’d like to end this with Kate’s own words, spoken in her last scene in One Christmas. Eyes failing and memory fading, she must have known this would be her last movie. Here is Kate’s final speech on film, delivered to her audience with a smile and a laugh:
I’ve always lived my life exactly as I wanted. I’ve tried to please no one but me me me--and very likely displeased a great number of people in the process. But I’m entirely content I can sit back in my old age and not regret a single moment or wish to change a single thing. What I wish for you my dear: a life--a life with no regrets. For you.
Thank you, Kate. Thank you, Nathaniel. Thank you, readers. For you.
Merry Christmas,
Anne Marie
Previous Week: Love Affair (1994) -In which Katharine Hepburn gives her blessing to Annette Bening and my inner actressexual weeps with joy.
Next Week: Epilogue - In which we rank films, learn Life Lessons, climb Mount Hepburn, and wrap this up with the party it deserves!