If you thought you knew Katharine Hepburn because you saw all her films and read everything written about her, Priya Parmar’s novel, The Original, may change your mind. The novel is, of course, fiction, but Parmar has done her research and yes, while some of the scenes are imagined, even some of the most unlikely ones actually did happen. For example, Howard Hughes did land on a golf course as a ploy to spend more time with Kate.
The seminal incident that defines Kate’s life occurs in Connecticut when she is just a child and finds her older brother, Tom, has hanged himself in his bedroom. The parents, obsessive about their image, create various narratives to explain their son’s death. Kate adored her brother and never recovers from the loss.
To understand Kate, you have to learn about her parents. Her father, a physician, is strict, cold, and controlling. Her mother, Kit, “believes in Margaret Sanger, Bryn Mawr, votes for women, New England and her husband.” Neither would win parent of the year awards. Dr. Hepburn is a bully, while Kit fights for women’s rights, but never fights for her daughter.
Kate is an athlete. She loves to swim, preferably in cold water. She excels on the tennis court and on the golf course. She will play these sports throughout her lifetime. She wears slacks before that was acceptable wear for women and often chops off her red hair. She knows where she started out, but she also knows where she wants to end up, on the stage and on the screen.
Kate loves sex and the warmth of a body next to her, whether a man’s or a woman’s. After four years at Bryn Mawr, she moves to New York City. Kate is married to Luddy, who sells insurance and has an office on Vanderbilt Avenue. But she and Laura Harding, heiress to the American Express fortune, are lovers. Many nights she stays at Laura’s returning home to shower after Luddy has left for the office. Luddy and Laura have one thing in common, their love for Kate is so strong they will endure any number of hurts and slights to hold onto her.
Kate has a rough start in New York, auditioning for plays, often nabbing parts, but the reviews are never great. Until the playwright Philip Barry suggests that Hollywood agent, Leland Hayward, meet Kate. “She’s a bit East Coast horsey and a little thorny but there is no one like her,” Barry tells Hayward. (Years later, Barry will be instrumental in orchestrating Kate’s return to a Hollywood that had turned its back on her.)
When Kate sets out for the West Coast, it’s Laura who comes with her, not Luddy. The dutiful husband remains back in New York, in the Turtle Bay townhouse he bought for Kate. Because those who buy movie tickets like their actresses heterosexual and single, Kate has to hide both of her lovers from the public. While Luddy cooperates, even agrees to a quick Mexico divorce if that’s what Kate wants, Laura digs in her heels. Prone to getting drunk at parties, she lets it slip several times that she has a relationship with Kate. Cleanup by the studio is swift, but Kate realizes Laura is a liability. The heiress is soon on a train back to New York.
Kate isn’t the only one forced to keep her sex life under wraps. Archie Leach left Bristol to join a circus and took Hollywood by storm. As Cary Grant he became a star and a sex symbol, but was living with Randolph Scott, another A-list actor. The duo owned a beach house together and at one time posed for a series of domestic photos in their home. Even though men were forced to also hide their sexual preferences, they could get away way with playing “bros” as housemates. For women, it was tougher.
Katharine Hepburn managed not only to survive but to carve her own path and become an icon. Even her films that flopped at the box office are watched again and again by those intent on figuring out what it was about this woman that continues to captivate audiences.
Parmar’s novel illustrates that Kate’s journey was never as easy as it seemed. Much of that had to do with the environment in Hollywood and in our country when conservative attitudes sought to target and censor those who dared to be different. Any thought that those times are behind us, however, would be wrong.
The Original
Priya Parmar
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Shutterstock photo by Walter Cicchetti
