The actor who Katharine Hepburn called ‘the pig’: “It is sheer masochism working with her”
Katharine Hepburn didn’t suffer fools gladly. In fact, she could be downright cruel to anyone whom she felt was unreasonable, unqualified, or unworthy. This often made her a hero, such as when she went toe-to-toe with MGM head Louis B Mayer or ignored the scandal and wore trousers no matter what anyone said. However, it also made her a bit intimidating to work with unless you had a personality strong enough to match.
For the most part, Hepburn worked with actors who were on par with her, whether it was her real-life partner Spencer Tracy, to whom she was always deferential, Cary Grant, with whom she had a strong working relationship, or John Wayne, whose politics she despised but who won her over with measured warmth and self-possession.
Later in her career, however, Hepburn worked with younger actors, including Peter O’Toole. Their collaboration in the 1968 period drama The Lion in Winter earned her her third of four Oscars and helped solidify their unlikely friendship.
Despite her spiky reputation, Hepburn could be nurturing towards up-and-coming actors, something O’Toole learned firsthand. In an interview with Charlie Rose, he revealed that the star used to attend his plays before he broke into Hollywood. He was lucky that she stuck around, though, because things got off to a rocky start when she came backstage to meet him for the first time and caught him in a private moment. “There were no lavatories in the theatre, and I was peeing in the sink,” he explained. “And a voice said, ‘Hello, my name is Kate Hepburn,’ and I had to withdraw and pretend that I was washing my hands.”
Somehow, that didn’t stop the relationship in its tracks before it had even begun. Instead, they became friends, and when the script for The Lion in Winter landed in O’Toole’s hands, he instantly thought of Hepburn for the role of Eleanor of Aquitaine. Tracy had just passed away, and he wasn’t sure she would be ready to get back to work, but he called her anyway. She didn’t answer. “About two weeks later,” he remembered, “The phone rang. ‘Hello pig—’ she calls me the pig ‘—Hello pig. Do it before I die.”
O’Toole didn’t explain why Hepburn called him ‘the pig,’ which is strange because he had just told the story of how they had met. Presumably, the fact that he was urinating into a sink in his dressing room had something to do with it. That said, they had a very particular dynamic that might have explained the nickname as well. According to Hepburn’s biographer, Anne Edwards, O’Toole was unusually submissive around the star, recognising that she would reduce him to her junior one way or another.
“She is terrifying,” he said affectionately. “It is sheer masochism working with her. She has been sent by some dark fate to nag and torment me.”
They both loved it and remained close friends until her death. For once, O’Toole had met his match as far as his strong personality was concerned, and he relished the opportunity to be put in his place, nickname and all.
