The director Katharine Hepburn hated working with so much she spat in their face: “I have nothing more to do with you or your film?”
Katharine Hepburn was always a woman who played by her own rules. She refused to bow to the Hollywood publicity machine and only married once as a young woman, living independently thereafter and never having any children. Throughout her career, she was always outspoken about her liberal politics and could be a firebrand from time to time. If you incurred her wrath, for example, she wouldn’t back down. Equally, though, if she felt a colleague was being mistreated, she wouldn’t stand for it – and this is why she reportedly spat in a director’s face on the set of the movie that notched her eighth Oscar nomination.
In 1959, a new Tennessee Williams play followed A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof onto the big screen. This adaptation of the one-act play Suddenly, Last Summer was written for the screen by Gore Vidal, and it was much more explicit in its depiction of homosexual themes than the previous adaptations. The film starred Hepburn as Catherine Holly, a young woman whose wealthy aunt wants her to have a lobotomy after she witnessed the tragic death of her cousin. It co-starred Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift, and was directed by Joseph L Mankiewicz, the Old Hollywood titan behind The Philadelphia Story and All About Eve.
Unfortunately, even though Hepburn came out of the project with another Oscar nod, the shoot was not a happy one. Clift was going through a very tough time as he was still recovering from a devastating car accident in 1956 that left him with a concussion, broken jaw, broken nose, fractured sinuses, fractured cheekbones, and several facial lacerations. He needed plastic surgery, which did an incredible job in leaving no visible scars. However, the left side of his face would never be properly mobile again, and he soon became addicted to painkillers and alcohol to cope with the physical and mental anguish.
Indeed, Clift’s condition was so worrying that no production company would insure him to work on a film. Producer Sam Spiegel circumvented this by approving his casting, though, and it would prove to be a controversial decision. Clift struggled with crippling headaches and insomnia throughout the shoot, and his dependency on drugs and alcohol meant he could barely get through a scene.
At its worst point, Clift’s condition meant a frustrated Mankiewicz had to shoot his longest scene in short takes of only one or two lines at a time. He reportedly went to Spiegel and implored him to replace the stricken actor. Depending on which reports are to be believed, though, Mankiewicz may have gone further than this and actively mistreated Clift on-set. However, editor William Hornbeck and cinematographer Jack Hildyard have disputed that take on events.
Either way, Hepburn was reportedly disgusted with how Mankiewicz and Spiegel treated Clift, a sick man she had formed a bond with on the film. She supposedly guaranteed to the two men that Clift would make it through the shoot, by hook or crook – and she made good on her word.
However, as soon as cameras stopped rolling on the last day of shooting, it’s claimed she strode up to Mankiewicz and asked, “I have nothing more to do with you or your film?” When the director agreed that this was the case, she supposedly spat in his face.
Incredibly, other sources have claimed Hepburn also spat in Siegel’s face, although this claim isn’t as widespread. According to Barbara Leaming’s biography, simply titled Katharine Hepburn, the furious star may have even burst into Spiegel’s office to spit on the floor and castigate him by saying, “You’re just a pig in a silk suit who send flowers!”
