‘Golden Age’ Hollywood’s most underrated director, according to Katharine Hepburn: “Seldom listed”
Katharine Hepburn was formidable. She was headstrong. She was, quite frankly, ruthless. But she could also equally recognise those traits in those who orbited around her.
Whether it was co-stars or those who worked behind the scenes, often anyone who worked with Hepburn would be foolish to forget her. She was one of the greatest stars in the Golden Age of Hollywood, after all, and never did anything by halves or quiet contemplation. In many ways, she expected much the same of her peers.
But at the same time, it’s simply a fact of life that some spotlights will shine more brightly on some people than others, and Hepburn was undoubtedly one of the lucky ones. It is true, though, that for people like her, their biggest talent is sometimes spotting talent, and in that regard, there was one filmmaker who, in her eyes, should have been the envy of all.
To be fair, she set this up as if George Cukor was some sort of little-known arthouse director, and he certainly wasn’t that. But through a clever act of camouflage, Hepburn was right in the sense that he perhaps wasn’t as celebrated as others in his field. “His was an extraordinary career, and yet he is seldom listed with the so-called great directors,” she later reflected.
Comparing Cukor in a role call from John Huston to Alfred Hitchcock, Hepburn then somewhat hit the nail on the head as to why he was more of a wallflower than other filmmakers of his prolific kind, despite saying, “I think that I have nally gured out why.” The real reason was that “He was primarily an actor’s director. He was primarily interested in making the actor shine. He saw the story through the eyes of the leading characters.”
In this sense, the role of the director, in Cukor’s world, was to make all the wheels of the machine turn, but do so invisibly. Hepburn herself only realised that when she looked, in hindsight, back on one of her greatest gems: “When I made A Bill of Divorcement, he set out to sell me to the audience: running down the stairs into the arms of David Manners – throwing myself on the moor – in Barrymore’s arms. A sort of isn’t-she-fascinating approach.”
But really, Hepburn’s assessment of Cukor boiled down to one thing, and one thing only. “His own focus was the actors,” she said, and that just about summed it up. After all, the very best films should be so transportive that you shouldn’t realise just how much endeavour has actually been poured into them.
Essentially, if a director has done their job right, they will have brought the actors alive on the screen in a way that the audience doesn’t register that there was a mad maestro behind the scenes, frantically conducting the whole affair to make it seem seamless as soon as the camera rolls. Someone who makes their presence known too much simply isn’t doing it right.
Because of this, Cukor never especially needed all the loud praise or lavish legacy that other directors may have had. His greatest joy was in being the puppeteer, manipulating the actors to create his own magical invention. Equally, it took a special person like Hepburn to acknowledge the huge skill it took to pull on all those levers.
