Katharine Hepburn - Me : Stories of My Life

As authentic and appealing as autobiographies get. Me catches all Miss Hepburns wonderful, refreshing qualitiesher straightforward honesty, her clear-eyed view of people, her capacity to attract friendship and love, her unwillingness to compromise, her basic decency, and her headstrongoften selfishdetermination to succeed. Me is a wonderfully open and discursive book about a woman who, in older years, can afford to look back on her life, her work (four Oscars), her family, her lovers, and her many friends with the disarmingat times almost dispassionatehonesty that seems to have characterized her entire career.

The Christian Science Monitor

A compelling picture of Hepburn by Hepburn Me is composed in short bursts, with the author grabbing the reader by the collar, urging attention, requesting patience, offering advice as she roams in staccato blips through her reminiscences of family, friends, lovers, colleagues, plays, and films. For her fans, Me is a gift they will want to unwrap.

Chicago Tribune

Charming, intelligent, opinionated, wittily self-deprecating The voice in the memoir is indubitably Hepburns own.

USA Today

Me reflects its authors personality perfectly.

Time magazine

A fun book Irresistible.

People

Reading Me: Stories of My Life is like paging through an endlessly fascinating scrapbook with a favorite great-aunt. Opinionated, witty, and determined as ever to get it all just right, Hepburn is clearly in command of her material. Me is proof positive that Katharine Hepburns memory and magic continue to intoxicate her smitten audience.

New York Newsday

Charming Vivid Chatty Repeatedly in Me, Ms. Hepburn describes her success as a case of good luck. Maybe so. But she passed that luck on to her film audiences, and now to her readers.

Atlanta Journal & Constitution

Katharine Hepburn has written a letter to the world. Me is a last curtain call with the leading lady handing out reviews and roses. Its a final bow to the strong, progressive parents who gave her permission to be her own person. A kiss blown to all the helpers in the wings who pulled her through Witty Moving.

The Dallas Morning News

Pure Hepburn Charming Original and likable.

The Boston Globe

As enchanting and delightful, as tender and witty, as compulsively readable a memoir as even the most ardent Hepburn fan could hope for The Great Kate can chalk up yet another triumph.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

[A] candid and slightly eccentric memoir filled with anecdote, opinion, gossip, and wonderful photographs. Finally, after a lifetime of Yankee reticence, Hepburn lets down her hair. The Katharine Hepburn we encounter in Me is less an actress than a force of nature, ablaze with enthusiasm. Its all deft and entertaining and very generous. May she live forever.

San Jose Mercury News

Me is the proper and deserved title for the memoirs of one of Hollywoods most determinedly independent stars. Grandly self-indulgent and utterly frank, Hepburnafter years of jealously guarding her privacyhas her say about her life, her family, and her career.

Los Angeles Daily News

A Ballantine Book
Published by The Random House Publishing Group
Copyright 1991 by Katharine Hepburn

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

Ballantine and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

www.ballantinebooks.com

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 96-96692

eISBN: 978-0-307-80768-7

This edition published by arrangement with Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.

First Ballantine Books International Mass Market Edition: February 1992
First Ballantine Books Domestic Mass Market Edition: August 1992
First Ballantine Books Trade Edition: August 1996

v3.1

I have a friend who keeps asking me why I am writing this book. Especially as I have said a thousand times: No, that is personal. No, I wont talk about that. What made me change my mind? I wonder myself. Something changed me. I thinkand I am not saying I knowI think that Ive always thought of myself as an actor. Now in the last few years Ive seen that creature whom I created sitting around saying, Hey, what goes on, what are we going to do? Were wasting time. Lets get going!

Shut up! Im sick of you. Im not going to hide behind you anymore. Who are you anyway? Youre not me. Youre that great big beautiful doll. Youre the lucky side of the coin. You were born at the right time. You looked right. You sounded right. You were lucky. You caught on and got rich. Good. Im glad that youve had a good time. Now Im going to take over.

What is that youre saying? Who am I?

Well, Im meIm what is called the power behind the throne. I am youryour character. Isnt that what they call it? Your Do this. Dont do that. Your fundamentals.

I run your ship. Youre the ship. Youre getting a bit long in the tooth and I may not be able to sell you as easily as I used to.

You have a right foot which doesnt work all that well. I mean it hurts. In 1982 you ran into that telephone pole. Stupid of you. Making a fancy comment about that shipyard just at the southeast edge of Saybrook Point. Listenso it hurts! But at least they didnt have to cut it off. Yes, of course it threw your whole body off balanceand now your back is painful too.

Gosh, what do you expect! Youve just taken your body for granted. Youre lucky you had a good one to begin with. Oh yes, those two shoulder operationsrotator cuffsisnt that what they were called? Yes, of course the right hip is fake. When did that go bad? In 1973.

Oh, that was a while ago.

Well, youre luckythat operation really worked. Oh hell, youre lucky! You can see! You can hear! You can bicycle! You can garden! Yes, kneeling downbut thats restful, isnt it? Kneeling down?

Anyway, heres where I come inyour character. I dont think that you ever realized how handy Ive been for you. Ive been there. I tell you what that meansIm your backup when you make a decision which is poorand what you become involved in doesnt work. Here I am to try to explain it away.