The Katharine Hepburn scene that affected the rest of her career
With four Academy Award wins for ‘Best Actress’, Katharine Hepburn holds the record for the most victories by a performer for their on-screen efforts, which is only a small part of the indelible legacy she left behind as one of the greatest actors to ever grace the silver screen.
Interestingly, despite winning the trophy on the very first attempt for her performance in 1933’s Morning Glory, it would be another 34 years before Hepburn emerged victorious for a second time. During that period, she was nominated a further eight times, though, with one of those movies resulting in an incident that would plague the rest of her personal and professional life.
Directed by the incomparable David Lean, 1955’s romantic comedy Summertime adapted Arthur Laurents’ play The Time of the Cuckoo, with Hepburn starring as American secretary Jane Hudson. Unmarried and middle-aged, she sets off for a summer holiday to Venice, having diligently saved for years to fund the trip, only to potentially find love at long last when she encounters Rossano Brazzi’s Renato Di Rossi.
However, due to his status as a secretly married man with a family of his own, Summertime proved controversial at the time due to its depiction of adultery and extramarital affairs, extending to a ban in India. Lean was also forced to persuade the Italian authorities to allow him to shoot on location at the height of tourist season, but it was Hepburn who ended up suffering most of all.
During one scene, Hepburn’s character takes a pratfall into one of the Venetian canals when taking a photograph, with the actor not entirely sold on the prospect of doing the stunt herself. Determined, Lean reasoned that it would look too obvious and fake were a double to be used, which ultimately convinced her to quite literally take the plunge.
Adding to her concern, not only did she end up filming the fall four times, but the disinfectant purportedly used to try and clean up the dirty water that had left Hepburn aghast caused it to foam up instead. For added protection, she was even smothered in Vaseline, which proved to be for nothing.
That same night, Hepburn’s eyes began to itch and water as a direct result of her plunge into the unsanitary waters of Venice’s iconic canals, which eventually saw her diagnosed with a rare form of conjunctivitis. The chronic eye condition ended up plaguing her for the remainder of her life and career, proving that she was entirely correct to be concerned about performing the stunt herself.
As was expected, given their respective status, Summertime would go on to land Hepburn and Lean Oscar nominations for ‘Best Actress’ and ‘Best Director’ respectively. They never ended up working together again, although that’s not to imply her conjunctivitis that was caused by his insistence had any bearing on the matter.
