Why John Huston said Katharine Hepburn was “born suspicious”
In the Golden Age of Hollywood, no woman embodied the word ‘star’ quite like Katharine Hepburn.
In an era where actors were at the whim of the almighty studios, Hepburn treated herself like the most important person in the world, and lived up to it too. Serious or comedic, her performances always drew a crowd and knocked out critics, resulting in her winning a record-breaking four acting Oscars, a feat unmatched for over 40 years.
Unfortunately, her titanic personality made competition out of his co-workers, dishing them utter disdain. While it regularly got her into spats with her female contemporaries, it wasn’t just the women. She terrified Peter O’Toole on the set of The Lion in Winter, with the legendary Irishman calling working alongside her “masochism” and, in return, she referred to him elegantly as “the pig”.
Another person who felt the full force of Hepburn’s personality was John Huston. The iconic adaptor of James Joyce’s ‘The Dead’, worked with her on 1951’s The African Queen, and the US National Film Registry preserved the epic adventure that saw Hepburn starring opposite Humphrey Bogart. As he told Playboy in 1985, Huston’s relationship with his leading woman got off to a terrible start.
“Katie was born suspicious,” he said, “She had great reservations regarding me that she was in no pains to conceal. She knew that both Bogart and I were wastrels, but Katie has a weakness for wastrels. Spencer Tracy was also one. But we put it on for her. We pretended to be even bigger wastrels than we were.”
Hepburn wasn’t incorrect in her assessment of both Bogart and Huston as “wastrels”. The iconic actor was known for getting into various scrapes with his co-stars, including accusing one of them of trying to kill him. Huston wasn’t much better; his excess turned dark on more than one occasion, including two car accidents in 1933, one of which led to the death of a pedestrian.
Part of pretending to be “even bigger wastrels” included tormenting poor Hepburn on set. Huston described that he and Bogart used soap to write dirty, childish words on their co-worker’s mirror, which apparently upset her every time. Given the working conditions on The African Queen, it’s not surprising that this pushed her over the edge. The shoot took place in Uganda and what was then known as the ‘Belgian Congo’. Poor quality drinking water laid waste to the cast and crew, with everyone except Huston and Bogart getting sick. How did they avoid the illness? They drank whisky instead.
Despite going out of his way to make his star’s life uncomfortable, the director did also give Hepburn some useful tips. “I advised her to play her as a lady rather than a shrew,” he explained, “She said, ‘What lady?’ I said, ‘Eleanor Roosevelt.’ That made sense to her, and her performance thereafter was everything I had ever hoped for.”
Despite the savage mirror notes, Hepburn received critical acclaim for her role in The African Queen, earning one of her many Oscar nominations for ‘Best Actress’.
