Drawing on a series of recordings over many
years, beginning in the mid-1970s, acclaimed biographer
Charlotte Chandler has written the most intimate and
personal biography ever published of Hollywood legend,
Katharine Hepburn. Introduced by George Cukor, who
directed Hepburn in films such as The Philadelphia
Story, and Adam's Rib, Chandler socialised with Hepburn
at the Cukor estate, allowing Chandler to tape their
conversations, during which Hepburn spoke candidly about
her personal and professional lives: finding the body of
her adored older brother, an apparent suicide at
fifteen, and assuming his birthday, even his name, as
her own; intimate details of her marriage and divorce
from Ludlow Ogden Smith, ‘Luddy’; and her affair with
Howard Hughes. She said that she enjoyed diving nude off
the wings of his seaplane when they went swimming
together. Her warmest recollections were of her
twenty-seven-year affair with Spencer
Tracy. Including the huge family influence that
shaped Hepburn’s personality, and including interviews
with many of the stars that worked with Hepburn over the
years, Katharine Hepburn: A Personal Biography is a
fascinating, delightful, and personal book that brings
readers as close as possible to the real Katharine
Hepburn.
Charlotte Chandler is the author of
several biographies of actors and directors, including
Groucho Marx, Alfred Hitchcock and Bette Davies all of
whom she interviewed extensively.
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