Katharine Hepburn once revealed the roles she wouldn’t play: “The parts aren’t there for women my age”
Among the greatest icons of Hollywood’s Golden Age, Katharine Hepburn has left a legacy that will not be extinguished anytime soon. With incredible performances spread out over multiple decades, the American actor created a body of work that is simply timeless, earning some of the most prestigious accolades along the way.
Like many great actors, Hepburn started out in the theatrical domain before eventually moving to the world of cinema, nabbing her debut in George Cukor’s 1932 drama A Bill of Divorcement. Of course, their most famous collaboration would come in 1940, when Hepburn starred alongside Cary Grant and James Stewart in one of the definitive Hollywood films of the 20th century.
While Hepburn adapted her performances as artistic sensibilities changed through the decades, it was clear from the very beginning that she had something different when compared to some of the other talented leading women in the industry. Evident in her early appearances in the screwball comedies of the 1930s, her on-screen presence was simply electric.
Cukor was one of the first to spot what made Hepburn so special, which almost everyone in the country caught on to at some point or another. This was reflected in the way she handled her cinematic image as well, shaped by her criticisms of the way in which screenwriters and filmmakers treated female characters during that period.
In an interview, Hepburn once opened up about the kind of roles that she would never have taken on but would probably have been forced to do if she hadn’t put up fierce resistance from the start.
The Hollywood icon said: “I had to, or they would have had me playing whores or discontented wives married to weasels and bores. I have now lived long enough to watch women go out of style, and all that’s left is moron sex. Maybe they’ll get tired of men committing violent, brutal acts and have the women commit them too, but that’s not much of an ambition.”
Hepburn added: “I wouldn’t play hatchet murderesses or alcoholic mothers or loonies when I was young, and I won’t play them now. So the parts aren’t there for a woman my age. What happened to Bette Davis’ career is heartbreaking. If you’ve been on the screen for 100 years, you shouldn’t show your face too often.”
One of the finest examples of her different approach to acting from that early period is Bringing Up Baby, which failed to rack up the necessary numbers at the box office but was eventually re-evaluated as one of Hepburn’s greatest roles. Almost a century later, the incredibly unique energy of her performance opposite Cary Grant is still palpable.
