Ann Nyberg - Remembering Katharine Hepburn: Stories of Wit and Wisdom about Americas Leading Lady

Ann Nyberg is the longest-serving, full-time anchor/reporter in Connecticut television history, anchoring the news at WTNH-TV (ABC) in New Haven. She began her broadcast journalism career right after graduation from Purdue University with a degree in journalism. Highlights of her career include assignments to Cuba and to the Vatican. She also hosts her own on-air and online long format chat show called Nyberg, on which she interviews innovators, entrepreneurs, and everyday folk, anybody who has a story to tell. Her popular website, Network Connecticut, spotlights people, places, innovators, entrepreneurs, and small businesses all over the state. She has been nominated for multiple Emmys and, in November 2015, was inducted into the prestigious Silver Circle. This is an honor given to television professionals who have made significant contributions to their communities and to the vitality of the television industry. It is a special recognition given to television pioneers by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS) Boston/New England Chapter.

Ann has made significant contributions to her southern New England community, she is a founding Board of Trustees member of the Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center (The Kate) in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, and is the only honorary female member of the Walter Camp Football Foundation, which raises thousands of dollars every year for charity. In 1993, Ann founded the Toy Closet Program at Yale-New Haven Hospital. Thousands of toys and other items are given to children of all ages to help ease their trauma.

Ann is the author of Slices of Life, A Storytellers Diary (Home-bound Publications, 2015) and also owns a boutique in Madison, Connecticut, called Annie Mame, where she sells vintage items and things made in Connecticut.

The vignettes in this book are a true gift for anyone who wants a glimpse inside the real life of Katharine HepburnConnecticut gal who rose to the stars. I wish to thank the many people who took the time to be interviewed by me and share their storiesthis book would not exist without them.

I especially want to thank the late Ellsworth Grant, Katharines brother-in-law, who was an observer of much of her life. A few years before his death, Ellsworth graciously shared a number of stories with me (he even gave me a typed copy of them and said, This is for you.probably to be sure I got them correct). As a journalist I am so happy to share these with so many others. As I retyped his vignettes for portions of this book, I felt his heart and soul in the writing and I decided these were best retold in his own words. A tremendous thank you to Ellsworth.

The author with Ellsworth Grant.

Fenwick (2016)

The Hepburns bought a summer home in Fenwick, a borough located in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, 50 miles south of Hartford, in 1912. Fenwick was a kind of Victorian commune, formed in the 1870s by mostly elite families from Hartford who built large, shingled cottages. It is a tiny peninsula facing Long Island Sound, with the Connecticut River on its eastern boundary and the South Cove on its western side.

The house was as close to the water as one could get, a rambling three-story place with twelve or more rooms; a wide front porch; peaks; gables; and, originally, one bathroom. Here, Katharine spent most of her childhood summers. She was excellent in swimming, diving, and golf. The four swings on the porch and the spooky secret passages in the third-floor attic fascinated the children of Fenwick. Kate and her brother Dick put on plays like Beauty and the Beast and Bluebeard.

Fenwick (2016)

In 1937, after his junior year at Harvard, Ellsworth Grant planned to drive to California with two of his classmates, Tom Calhoun and Caspar Weinberger (future US Secretary of Defense under President Ronald Regan), but first he had to say goodbye his serious girlfriend, Marion Hepburn, who was at her familys home in Fenwick. He remembers arriving on a Saturday afternoon. Marion and her mother were waiting for them, while Katharine was expected later from New York with a new beau.

He lets Tom Calhoun tell the rest of the story in his own words:

After dinner, Marion and Ellsworth went for a walk on the beach. Caspar and I were put into a guest bedroom. There was a bathroom between our room and another guest room. Caspar said he would take a shower and go to bed. I was listening to Caspar singing in the shower about the girl of his dreams when a loud banging commenced on the bathroom door, which was then accompanied by someone screaming, Who the hell is using that shower?

I HAVE LOVED AND BEEN IN LOVE. THERES A BIG DIFFERENCE.

katharine hepburn

There was silence as the shower water hissed to a whisper and Caspars surprised reply came through the wall. It is I, Caspar.

I dont care who you are, the angry female yelled. Get out of there! Thats Howards shower!

The next minute the doors to the hall and the bathroom flew open at the same time. Through one dashed Caspar with a towel around his waist. Through the other came a tall, thin, redheaded girl with fire in her green eyes.

The Howard in question was Katharines current beau, Howard Hughes, the eccentric, famous flyer, for whom she had a new bathroom built especially so he wouldnt be exposed to other peoples germs. That night he failed to show up, but arrived the next day in his seaplane, this was the most dramatic event in Fenwicks history except for the hurricane of 1938. The family was glad when the romance ended, as he had been a difficult and demanding guest.

Ellsworth Grant recalled: September 21, 1938, dawned bright in the borough of Fenwick, Old Saybrook, at the mouth of the Connecticut River. Most of the summer residents had closed their houses after Labor Day, but the Hepburn family had stayed on. Katharine was elated that her new play, The Philadelphia Story, was headed for Broadway. She took her usual early morning swim and played a round of golf on the nine-hole course. The wind began to rise on the par-three ninth hole and her ball flew straight for the hole. Her first hole-in-one and a record 31 strokes!

After four days of heavy rains the weather was very warm and muggy. At 2:00 p.m., the rain fell again in torrents. Soon a gigantic wall of black-green salt water smashed against the shores of Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. The ocean tides, already at their fullest flood because of the autumnal equinox, rose 10 to 17 feet above normal. Nine bodies washed ashore in Westbrook.